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A review by kiramke
The Breakbeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop by
5.0
Just bought this too - couldn't help it, the preview pieces in Poetry Magazine were so good...
Review:
Excellent, cannot recommend it enough. I don't know how to do it justice, so I'm going to quote one of the artist statements.
"The break is forever chipping away new labyrinths toward the place where the human soul goes to feed when nothing else will let it eat. The break is moving. It is a shape-shifter and a trickster. [....] The anthology here is peopled with writers who've paid their tribute to Papa 'Legba one way or the next. They've studied and lived in the liminal space from which the break emanates. They've pledged to the tradition of the break and the pilgrimage it demands. Each is chipping away a different maze to get to where the bass lives, and ensuring that his tracks can only be followed by those who pay the necessary tithes. It is why this anthology is a bible and a code-book. It is essential reading and trickster it is - offering several doors through which you may enter, if you have a clue about what you're travelling to."
-Roger Bonair-Agard
If you haven't read it... read it.
If you have read it... watch the videos, go to the shows, see the kids coming up in the next class that are building on this tradition.
Review:
Excellent, cannot recommend it enough. I don't know how to do it justice, so I'm going to quote one of the artist statements.
"The break is forever chipping away new labyrinths toward the place where the human soul goes to feed when nothing else will let it eat. The break is moving. It is a shape-shifter and a trickster. [....] The anthology here is peopled with writers who've paid their tribute to Papa 'Legba one way or the next. They've studied and lived in the liminal space from which the break emanates. They've pledged to the tradition of the break and the pilgrimage it demands. Each is chipping away a different maze to get to where the bass lives, and ensuring that his tracks can only be followed by those who pay the necessary tithes. It is why this anthology is a bible and a code-book. It is essential reading and trickster it is - offering several doors through which you may enter, if you have a clue about what you're travelling to."
-Roger Bonair-Agard
If you haven't read it... read it.
If you have read it... watch the videos, go to the shows, see the kids coming up in the next class that are building on this tradition.