King Me
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)
On the “Best Poetry Books of the Year" list from Library Journal
“A sophisticated and breathtaking writer, Reeves takes the reader on a harrowing journey: each poem comes packed with arresting imagery, relentless in its examination of how tragedy and trauma become internalized — cleaning out the wounds to understand the pain."—Los Angeles Review of Books
“Roger Reeves' King Me stitches together many worlds into one startling and visceral book. His ranging, encyclopedic knowledge crosses history, medicine, biology, metapoetics and more, but he tackles it all with a bold and sonorous surrealist flow."—American Microreviews
From a horse witnessing the lynching of Emmett Till to Mikhail Bulgakov chronicling the forced famines in Poland in the 1930s, King Me examines the erotics of care and the place of song, elegy, and praise as testaments to those moments. As Roger Reeves said in an interview, "While writing King Me, I became very interested in the mythology of king, the one who is sacrificed at the end of the harvest season. . . . For me, the myth manifests in the killing of young black men, Emmett Till, and in the ways America deems young, black male bodies as expendable—Jean Michel Basquiat, Mike Tyson, Jack Johnson. These are the young kings whom we love to kill—over and over again."
From "Some Young Kings":
The hummingbirds inside my chest,with their needle-nosed pliers for tonguesand hammer-heavy wings, have left a messof ticks in my lungs and a punctured lullabyin my throat. Little boy blue come blowyour horn. The cow's in the meadow. And Dorothy's alone in the corn with Jack, his black fingers, the brass of his lips, the half-moons of his fingernails clickingalong her legs until she howls—Charlie Parker. Charlie Parker. Charlie Parker . . .
Roger Reeves earned his MFA from the James A. Michener Center for Creative Writing and his PhD from the University of Texas. His poems have appeared in Poetry, American Poetry Review, and Boston Review. He teaches at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
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Roger Reeves. (2016). King Me. Copper Canyon Press.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Roger Reeves. 2016. King Me. Copper Canyon Press.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Roger Reeves, King Me. Copper Canyon Press, 2016.
MLA Citation (style guide)Roger Reeves. King Me. Copper Canyon Press, 2016.
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Roger Reeves: Roger Reeves earned his MFA from the James A. Michener Center for Creative Writing, and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Texas and an assistant professor of poetry at the University of Illinois, Chicago. His poems have appeared in Poetry, American Poetry Review, and Boston Review.
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On the “Best Poetry Books of the Year" list from Library Journal
“A sophisticated and breathtaking writer, Reeves takes the reader on a harrowing journey: each poem comes packed with arresting imagery, relentless in its examination of how tragedy and trauma become internalized — cleaning out the wounds to understand the pain."—Los Angeles Review of Books
“Roger Reeves' King Me stitches together many worlds into one startling and visceral book. His ranging, encyclopedic knowledge crosses history, medicine, biology, metapoetics and more, but he tackles it all with a bold and sonorous surrealist flow."—American Microreviews
From a horse witnessing the lynching of Emmett Till to Mikhail Bulgakov chronicling the forced famines in Poland in the 1930s, King Me examines the erotics of care and the place of song, elegy, and praise as testaments to those moments. As Roger Reeves said in an...
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On the “Best Poetry Books of the Year" list from Library Journal
“A sophisticated and breathtaking writer, Reeves takes the reader on a harrowing journey: each poem comes packed with arresting imagery, relentless in its examination of how tragedy and trauma become internalized — cleaning out the wounds to understand the pain."—Los Angeles Review of Books
“Roger Reeves' King Me stitches together many worlds into one startling and visceral book. His ranging, encyclopedic knowledge crosses history, medicine, biology, metapoetics and more, but he tackles it all with a bold and sonorous surrealist flow."—American Microreviews
From a horse witnessing the lynching of Emmett Till to Mikhail Bulgakov chronicling the forced famines in Poland in the 1930s, King Me examines the erotics of care and the place of song, elegy, and praise as testaments to those moments. As Roger Reeves said in an interview, "While writing King Me, I became very interested in the mythology of king, the one who is sacrificed at the end of the harvest season. . . . For me, the myth manifests in the killing of young black men, Emmett Till, and in the ways America deems young, black male bodies as expendable—Jean Michel Basquiat, Mike Tyson, Jack Johnson. These are the young kings whom we love to kill—over and over again."
From "Some Young Kings":
The hummingbirds inside my chest,with their needle-nosed pliers for tonguesand hammer-heavy wings, have left a messof ticks in my lungs and a punctured lullabyin my throat. Little boy blue come blowyour horn. The cow's in the meadow. And Dorothy's alone in the corn with Jack, his black fingers, the brass of his lips, the half-moons of his fingernails clickingalong her legs until she howls—Charlie Parker. Charlie Parker. Charlie Parker . . .
Roger Reeves earned his MFA from the James A. Michener Center for Creative Writing and his PhD from the University of Texas. His poems have appeared in Poetry, American Poetry Review, and Boston Review. He teaches at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
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November 1, 2013
In this history-soaked first book from Reeves, he turns to young black men who have been deemed expendable, again and again. Full of elegies, praise songs, testaments, and suffering: "a punctured lullaby in my throat."
Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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October 1, 2013
Adorned with a Basquiat painting on the cover, Reeves' collection is a beautiful and thought-provoking look at race, identity, the South, and Christianity. Heavily influenced by pop culture and the Western canonfrom Wu Tang and Mike Tyson to Keats and Nerudathese playful poems are shaped by recurring characters, including Jesus, and a fascination with herons. The formatting of Kletic of Walt Whitman, the Wound Dresser forces the reader's eye to move about; there are two definition poems, explicating Cymothoa exigua and Schistosoma mansoni; and a series of Exit Interview poems. The title, King Me, is from Self-Portrait as Ernestine Tiny' Davis: Call me hippo. Call this woman beneath me / a broken boat, / Feed me. Call my appetites a kind kingdom. / Call me queen. King me. But the true voice of the collection is forged in such poems as Some Young Kings and Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence: When I kissed the old woman's cheeks, / I tried to leave what little honey I had eaten that morning. Reeves' meaningful poems are smart without being pretentious.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)
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November 15, 2013
"King me" is an expression from the game of checkers, declared when one player's piece reaches the opponent's end of the board and is "kinged," allowing it a much greater range of movement. Reeves's debut begins with that demand, a bold but risky gambit. Reeves (poetry, Univ. of Illinois, Chicago) is interested in the intersection of politics and the personal. As such, his poetry must make the case for his version of the personal being a matter of public concern. As a poet, Reeves clearly has chops, and when he hits, he hits hard, his lines producing oddly beautiful music. But when he misses, he misses big, and his shortcomings often overshadow his virtuosity. The more he misses, the more this collection seems like someone demanding to be rewarded for what they haven't yet done, a bit like a player demanding that all his pieces be kinged before the game has even begun. VERDICT Reeves is one to watch, but readers of poetry will need to decide whether his talent justifies his claims.--Chris Pusateri, Jefferson Cty. P.L., Lakewood, CO
Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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