Advanced Search Request a Book

ORDERS

Readings Orders 0

DEMANDS

Readings Demands 0

Black Maria
[Paperback - 2007]
kevin young
On Demand
Availability in 4-6 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: $20
Our Price: Rs.3595 Rs.3056
Standard Discount: 15%
You Save: Rs.539
Category: Literature
Sub-category: Poetry
Additional Category: Literary Fiction - Literary Collections
Publisher: Knopf | ISBN: 9780375710506 | Pages: 256
Shipping Weight: .363 | Dimensions: 5.5 x .7 x 9 inches

Description

Kevin Young follows his acclaimed exploration of the blues in Jelly Roll with another playful riff on a vital art form, giving us a film noir in verse. Black Maria–the title is a slang term for a police van as well as a hearse–is a twisting tale of suspicion, passion, mystery, and the city. Young channels the world of detective movies, picking up its lingo and dark glamour in five “reels” of poetry–the adventures of a “soft-boiled” private eye, known as A.K.A. Jones, and an ingenue turned femme fatale, Delilah Redbone, who’s come to town from down south (“Mama bent till dark / tending rows to send / Me to school . . . I wanted / To head on & hitch . . . strike it / Big”). We follow Jones and Delilah through a maze of aliases and ambushes, sex and suspicions, fast talk and hard luck, in Shadowtown where noir characters abound. The Killer, The Gunsel, The Hack, The Director, The Champ, and The Snitch are among the local luminaries and beautiful losers who mingle with Jones and his elusive lady as they stalk one another through the scenes of the poet’s dazzling “treatment.” Charming, funky, bleak, humorous, picaresque, and full of pathos, Black Maria is brimming with the originality and stark lyricism we have come to expect from this remarkable poet.

When we met her first request:
Got a light?
*
I only had dark
so gave her that instead.
*
Ashtray full of butts
& maybes.
*
The sound of her heels down the hall
to me means reveille.

(from “Stills”)

Click on the poem titles below to hear Kevin Young read from Black Maria.

About the Author

Kevin Young is an American poet heavily influenced by the poet Langston Hughes and the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Young graduated from Harvard College in 1992, was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University (1992-1994), and received his MFA from Brown University. While in Boston and Providence, he was part of the African-American poetry group, The Dark Room Collective.Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Young is the author ofMost Way Home,To Repel Ghosts,Jelly Roll,Black Maria,For The Confederate Dead,Dear Darkness, and editor ofGiant Steps: The New Generation of African American Writers;Blues Poems; Jazz PoemsandJohn Berryman's Selected Poems.His Black Cat Blues, originally published inThe Virginia Quarterly Review, was included inThe Best American Poetry 2005. Young's poetry has appeared inThe New Yorker,Poetry Magazine,The Paris Review,Ploughshares, and other literary magazines. In 2007, he served as guest editor for an issue ofPloughshares. He has written on art and artists for museums in Los Angeles and Minneapolis.His 2003 book of poemsJelly Rollwas a finalist for the National Book Award.After stints at the University of Georgia and Indiana University, Young now teaches writing at Emory University, where he is the Atticus Haygood Professor of English and Creative Writing, as well as the curator of the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library, a large collection of first and rare editions of poetry in English.

Also by the Same Author

View All
Jazz Poems (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets)
[Hardback - 2006]
kevin young
In Stock
List Price: £12
Our Price: Rs.2645 Rs.2380
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.265
Afrofuturism:a History Of Black Futures
[Paperback - 2024]
kevin young
On Demand
Availability in 4-6 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: $29.95
Our Price: Rs.7745 Rs.6583
Standard Discount: 15%
You Save: Rs.1162
Jelly Roll:a Blues
[Paperback - 2005]
kevin young
On Demand
Availability in 4-6 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: $18
Our Price: Rs.3145 Rs.2673
Standard Discount: 15%
You Save: Rs.472
For The Confederate Dead
[Paperback - 2008]
kevin young
On Demand
Availability in 4-6 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: $18
Our Price: Rs.3095 Rs.2631
Standard Discount: 15%
You Save: Rs.464
Dear Darkness:Poems
[Paperback - 2010]
kevin young
On Demand
Availability in 4-6 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: $18
Our Price: Rs.3245 Rs.2758
Standard Discount: 15%
You Save: Rs.487
Ardency:a Chronicle Of The Amistad Rebels
[Paperback - 2012]
kevin young
On Demand
Availability in 4-6 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: $19.95
Our Price: Rs.3495 Rs.2971
Standard Discount: 15%
You Save: Rs.524
Book Of Hours:Poems
[Paperback - 2015]
kevin young
On Demand
Availability in 4-6 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: $21
Our Price: Rs.3545 Rs.3013
Standard Discount: 15%
You Save: Rs.532
Blue Laws:Selected And Uncollected Poems, 1995-2015
[Paperback - 2017]
kevin young
On Demand
Availability in 4-6 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: $25
Our Price: Rs.4945 Rs.4203
Standard Discount: 15%
You Save: Rs.742
Brown:Poems
[Hardback - 2018]
kevin young
On Demand
Availability in 4-6 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: $27
Our Price: Rs.4745 Rs.4033
Standard Discount: 15%
You Save: Rs.712
Brown:Poems
[Paperback - 2020]
kevin young
On Demand
Availability in 4-6 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: $18
Our Price: Rs.3145 Rs.2673
Standard Discount: 15%
You Save: Rs.472
Emile And The Field
[Hardback - 2022]
kevin young
On Demand
Availability in 4-6 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: $20.99
Our Price: Rs.3845 Rs.3268
Standard Discount: 15%
You Save: Rs.577
Emile And The Field
[Hardback - 2022]
kevin young
On Demand
Availability in 4-6 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: $18.99
Our Price: Rs.3645 Rs.3098
Standard Discount: 15%
You Save: Rs.547

Bestsellers in Literature

View All
Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass
[Hardback - 2020]
lana del rey
In Stock
List Price: £16.99
Our Price: Rs.4245 Rs.3820
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.425
Only Dull People Are Brilliant At Breakfast: Little Black Classics 119
[Paperback - 2016]
oscar wilde
Out of Stock
Availability in 2-4 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: £3
Our Price: Rs.645 Rs.580
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.65
Conversations On Love
[Paperback - 2022]
natasha lunn
Out of Stock
Availability in 2-4 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: £10.99
Our Price: Rs.2395 Rs.2155
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.240
Healing Through Words
[Hardback - 2022]
rupi kaur
In Stock
List Price: £16.99
Our Price: Rs.5045 Rs.4540
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.505
The Night Is Darkening Round Me: Little Black Classics 63
[Paperback - 2015]
emily bronte
Out of Stock
Availability in 2-4 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: £3
Our Price: Rs.645 Rs.580
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.65