To Repel Ghosts

by YOUNG, KEVIN

• ISBN13: 9780375710230
• ISBN10: 037571023X
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2005-09-27
• Publisher: Knopf

Summary

Revamped from its original "double album" version of 350 pages into this unique "remix,"To Repel Ghostscaptures the dynamic work and brief life of the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. In spare, jazzlike verse Kevin Young tells the story of Basquiat's rise from the mock prophet and graffiti artist SAMO to one of the hottest painters of the 1980s ("blue-chip Basquiat / playing the bull / market"), exploring the artist's bouts with fame and heroin, mourning his untimely death, and celebrating his legacy. Along the way Young riffs on Basquiat's paintings and sayings, on the music he loved, on the artists he ran with (Andy Warhol and Keith Haring, among them), and on the black heroes (Charlie Parker, Muhammad Ali, Billie Holiday) who inspired him. Young's poetic channeling of Basquiat--a jostling, poignant brand of downtownspeak--makes for an urban epic in the tradition of Langston Hughes's "A Dream Deferred."To Repel Ghosts, along with Young'sJelly Roll: A BluesandBlack Maria, his recent book of film noir verse, forms an American trilogy--Devil's Music--that explores other art forms through poetry. In its creation, Yound has become a poet whose work speaks both for and beyond his genre, with a music all its own.

Author Biography

Kevin Young is the author of four previous collections of poetry and the editor of Library of America's John Berryman: Selected Poems, Everyman's Library Pocket Poets anthology Blues Poems, and Giant Steps: The New Generation of African American Writers. His book Jelly Roll was finalist for the National Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and won the Paterson Poetry Prize. Young, who has also been the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, is currently the Atticus Haygood Professor of English and Creative Writing and curator of the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library at Emory University.

Table of Contents

{SIDE B}
Negative	3	(4)
PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG DERELICT
Campbell's Black Bean Soup	7	(1)
Poison Oasis	8	(2)
Cadillac Moon	10	(3)
Brothers Sausage	13	(2)
City-as-School	15	(3)
Man-Made	18	(4)
New York Beat	22	(3)
Beyond Words	25	(4)
Defacement	29	(2)
Rinso	31	(3)
Dos Cabezas	34	(2)
VNDRZ	36	(2)
The Fun Gallery	38	(5)
JACK JOHNSON
Black Jack	43	(2)
The Upset	45	(3)
The Crown	48	(4)
The Ring	52	(4)
The Fix	56	(3)
Last Chance	59	(5)
Exhibitions	64	(5)
The Race	69	(6)
FAMOUS NEGRO ATHLETES
Famous Negro Athletes	75	(2)
Amateur Bout	77	(10)
Psalm, "Hes full," True Story, A Prayer; "Love is," Neon Shoe Repair; Peel, "Junk"
Saint Joe Louis Surrounded by Snakes	87	(2)
Monarchs	89	(4)
Muhammad Ali by Andy Warhol	93	(2)
Cassius Clay by Basquiat	95	(3)
In Italian	98	(12)
Thesis 1983, Flash in Venice, False, The Italian Version of Popeye Has No Pork in His Diet, Popeye Versus the Nazis, Catharsis
Peruvian Maid	110	(3)
First Class	113	(6)
QUALITY MEATS FOR THE PUBLIC
Hollywood Africans	119	(3)
Self-Portrait as a Heel, Part Two	122	(2)
Coke®	124	(3)
Oxidation Portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat	127	(1)
Toxic	128	(5)
Vocabulario	133	(2)
Onion Gum	135	(3)
Eyes + Eggs	138	(2)
Pork	140	(1)
Oleo	141	(2)
Quality	143	(2)
Revised Undiscovered Genuis of the Mississippi Delta	145	(3)
Red King	148	(4)
Magi Crown, Toussant L'Ouverture Versus Savonarola, Nod
New Art, New Money	152	(9)
{SIDE A}
KING ZULU
Native Carrying Some Guns, Bibles, Amorites on Safari	161	(1)
Tobacco Versus Red Chief	162	(1)
Jim Crow	163	(2)
Lent	165	(4)
THE MECHANICS THAT ALWAYS HAVE A GEAR LEFT OVER
Nu-Nile	169	(2)
Collaborations	171	(6)
Arm + Hammer, Socialite, Alba's Breakfast, Negress, Everlast
His Glue-Sniffing Valet	177	(3)
Light Blue Movers	180	(3)
Antar	183	(2)
Warhol Attends Roy Cohn's Final Birthday Party at the Palladium, June 1985	185	(2)
Last Supper	187	(5)
Gravestone	192	(2)
Memorial Mass for Andy Warhol, April Fool's Day, 1987	194	(2)
Collection of Dennis Hopper	196	(3)
Savoy	199	(3)
Satchmo	202	(2)
Stardust	204	(2)
The Mechanics That Always Have a Gear Left Over	206	(4)
Charlie Chan on Horn	210	(5)
OUT GETTING RIBS
Riding With Death	215	(3)
Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta	218	(6)
Nature Morte	224	(3)
Soul	227	(2)
Riddle Me This Batman	229	(3)
Eroica	232	(2)
Monk	234	(3)
Skin Head Wig	237	(6)
PENTIMENTO
Dos Cabezas 2	243	(2)
Man Struck Lightning-2 Witnesses	245	(1)
Anybody Speaking Words	246	(2)
Ernok	248	(2)
"Replicas"	250	(2)
Gri Gri	252	(5)
PEGASUS
The Dingoes That Park Their Brains With Their Gum	257	(3)
Epitaph	260	(2)
Shrine Outside Basquiat's Studio, September 1988	262	(2)
Heaven	264	(5)
Two Photographs of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paris	269	(3)
The Ninth Circle	272	(3)
Vanitas	275	(3)
Relics	278	(11)
Throne, Cravat, Love, Brain©, One Man Show, Canonization
Langston Hughes	289	(2)
Urgent Telegram to Jean-Michel Basquiat	291	(1)
Retrospective	292	(3)
Liner Notes	295