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Last Updated: Sep 10th, 2008 - 10:18:07 |
Kevin Powell’s No Sleep Till Brooklyn is an atmospheric rendering of the urban experience. In this thoughtful compilation of new and selected poems, Powell addresses subjects such as the one bedroom apartment where he grew up in Jersey City, N.J., his absent daddy and love that splintered and went awry—all through heart drenched stanzas.
Like Powell’s 2006 effort, Someday We’ll All Be Free, Powell’s most recent book strives to make Black America a better place. The poems are both personal and universal as they echo the classic saga of the African-American family as it transcends poverty, government-endorsed crack and unsanitary Section 8 housing. Powell’s poetic prose and vivid vernacular is a delightful recipe, which mixes references, for example, to the keen eye of rapper Nas and those of legendary poet Langston Hughes.
Powell, a former Vibe contributor, writes in the post-soul aesthetic where allusions to Erykah Badu, Tupac, John Coltrane, and Kurt Cobain are just as powerful as allusions to Helen of Troy, Odysseus, and the mighty Zeus. One can sense the angst and painful introspection in each of Powell’s poems. In “What the deal, son?” he writes:
Will those dreams
I had as a child come
to pass will I fall
through the sky landing in a pit of purple rats
as the apocalypse
loosens its belt
and beats the
pavement until
welts the size of
africa’s left nostril
quakes my puny bones.
The personal revelations continue in “Jersey City” where Powell tries to make sense of lingering childhood memories:
the hostile paranoia I felt whenever my mother and I trekked Jackson
Avenue, past the empty boarded up buildings, past the garage-strewn lots, past the sink, unshaven men with their pocket size bottle of liquor.
Powell’s childhood doesn’t just haunt him; the activist recognizes that the same obstacles that plagued his family still plagues many post-millennium Black families.
Powell is gearing up to run as a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Congress from Brooklyn, N.Y. and, given his history of progressive literature and grassroots activism, the election may another forum to move his poetry into action. In No Sleep Till Brooklyn, Powell shows that the politics of culture, identity and Black survival are serious causes that drive his life work.
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