Front cover image for The listening : poems

The listening : poems

Kyle Dargan's debut collection of poetry, The Listening searches through the cluttered surface of contemporary life to tune into the elemental sounds within the marrow of living/life. Throughout the collection, Dargan interweaves elements of his heritage with the present day--jazz influences blend with hip-hop; neoslave narratives run parallel with the intimate tales of civil rights leaders; post-9/11 America is juxtaposed with family portraits of the sixties and seventies--to reveal the continuous, though ever-changing, music of the world around us. Whether capturing the famous Ali-Frazier fight in Manila or a trip to the local barbershop, Muddy Waters or boyhood blacktop games, Dargan gives voice to the most poignant and fleeting aspects of our everyday existence. With singular incisiveness and vigor, these poems act simultaneously as psalms and elegies, praising life at the same time they lament its inevitable passing
Print Book, English, ©2004
University of Georgia Press, Athens, ©2004
Poetry
xviii, 83 pages ; 22 cm
9780820326610, 0820326615
54082265
Foreword / by Quincy Troupe
Acknowledgments
Invocation : of the sun
[Pt. 1] Chronograffiti
Search for Robert Hayden
Redefinition
Last dragons
Satin touch
Ahboo
Halfway house
Single-ride
This knight
Dementia
Life equation
How Dwayne got knocked out
*Early nineties urban slang for no-name sneakers
nap-i-ness
On men
Surrender II : chop
The battlefield
Surrender III : study
6:38 a.m., Mississippi time
[Pt. 2] Second sky
I. The pre-land
II. Shard
III. Fable
IV. Orbit
V. The truth
[Pt. 3] Fingers, fader
Melody forensic
Chiaroscuro
Misornithology
Rock w/ you
[Murk 'n' teal izm]
(Black) Jack Johnson or Ghetto rock and roll
One's for the money
Letter : Muddy Waters to Michael S. Harper
[Pt. 4] Rememory
Bluff
Parcel
Inventory
Elementary
Nine winters
[Pt. 5] Chronograffiti (B-sides)
1975
Combustion
Letting
On men
On men
Surrender I : commission
Palinode
Writing under the influence of Dirty Havana Trilogy by Pedro Juan Gutiérrez
Surrender IV : muse
Yin
Surrender V : revue
Metro wet
Letter to an American cousin
In the adjacent days
Nuclear winter : a solstice
Tidying up
Old ways
Outvocation : for the returning
"Winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize"--Cover