Jelly Roll: A Blues

by Kevin Young

Book Overview

In this jaunty and intimate collection, Kevin Young invents a language as shimmying and comic, as low-down and high-hearted, as the music from which he draws inspiration. With titles such as "Stride Piano," "Gutbucket," and "Can-Can," these poems have the sharp completeness of vocalized songs and follow a classic blues trajectory: praising and professing undying devotion ("To watch you walk / cross the room in your black / corduroys is to see / civilization...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375709894
• ISBN13: 9780375709890
• Release Date: February 2005
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

amazing

I read this book in one sitting on an airplane and I was mesmerized. I kept looking to my right to see if the woman next to me was peeking over my shoulder. The poems were so good I thought she should have been able to feel it and want to read, too.

great collection

another fine book by one of most talented poets

if you know poetry, you'll love this

Sorry one of the previous "reviewers" apparently hasn't ever read good poetry before, but Jelly Roll is the real deal: smart, savvy, really original yet totally accesible. Young here solidifies his reputation as one of America's hottest poets to check for. And it's a gorgeous, gorgeous book to boot!

Keep It Rolling...

Put this book next to his previous "To Repel Ghost" & readers have a solid sense of the aesthetic range Kevin Young aspires to. These poems sing, they signify, cry & dance with a Morrisonian spectrum of emotion, tuning into the full complexity of Blues. The book, its form, are as informed as they are playful & experimental--the voice confident yet not afraid to examine itself, and chuckle.