Authors: Sarah Blake
Mr. West
mr. west
MR.
WEST
sarah blake
WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PRESS MIDDLETOWN, CONNECTICUT
WESLEYAN POETRY
Wesleyan University Press
Middletown CT 06459
www.wesleyan.edu/wespress
2015 © Sarah Blake
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Wesleyan University Press is a member of the Green Press Initiative. The paper used in this book meets their minimum requirement for recycled paper.
This is a creative and original work of poetry about the poet's life and her experience of Kanye West's work and public persona. Kanye West does not authorize, endorse or approve of any of the material contained in this book.
Excerpt in “Gaze” on pp. 89â91 from Catie Rosemurgy, “Variorum,” in
The Stranger Manual
. Copyright © 2010 by Catie Rosemurgy. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota,
www.graywolfpress.org
.
Excerpts in “The Fallible Face” on pp. 28â30 from Emmanuel Levinas,
Ethics and Infinity
(Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1995), 86, 92; and
Totality and Infinity
(Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1969), 75, 178, 199. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Blake, Sarah (Poet)
[Poems. Selections]
Mr. West / Sarah Blake.
    pages cm. â (Wesleyan Poetry series)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN
978-0-8195-7517-3 (cloth: alk. paper) â
ISBN
978-0-8195-7518-0 (ebook)
I. Title.
Ps3602.l3485a6 2015
811'.6âdc23
2014035803
5 4 3 2 1
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Cover image: Relief of the falcon god Horus at the Temple of Edfu in Egypt. Photograph © Olaf Tausch, from Wikimedia Commons.
FOR
kanne
AND FOR
noah
CONTENTS
“Runaway” Premieres in Los Angeles on October 18, 2010
God Created Night and It Was Night
This Is Not the First Time I've Wondered
So Kanye Transformed Himself, Producer to Superstar
I Want a House to Raise My Son In
On November 10th, 2007, Donda West Died
Three Months, to the Day, before Taylor Turned Twenty, but Kanye
A Day at the Mall Reminds Me of America
Taylor Doesn't Speak Out Against Racism
Because Kanye Isn't King Kong or Emmett Till or a N ****
I Try Not to See Myself as a Mother Figure
After Donda Died, Kanye Dated Amber
Kanye as a Quantum Particle Yet to Be Observed
Kanye Raps, “
        Â
” Part 1
I No Longer Have to Look Up Dates Like Your Birthday, June 8, 1977
Kanye Raps, “
        Â
” Part 2
THE UNENDING WORLD THAT CONNECTS US: NOTES AND FURTHER READING
mr. west
“RUNAWAY” PREMIERES IN LOS ANGELES ON OCTOBER 18, 2010
MTV.com
reported: At the end of his speech, West touched briefly on his mother's death and how he isn't scared of anything because he feels as though everything has been taken away from him. “I have no mother, no grandmothers, no girlfriend, no daughter, and I lived with a woman my whole life,” he said.
Kanye is 33. If he were Jesus, he would die this year,
and be resurrected.
I can't unthink this thought.
He said he had considered suicide, but found his life to be that of a soldier's,
“a soldier for culture.”
Some men are kept alive by fighting.
I don't want this for you, Kanye.
To the right of the article is a video clip of an interview.
“⦠both me and George express ourselves with our truest, our truest vision ⦔
Kanye's bottom teeth distract me.
If I ever questioned whether the diamonds were there,
they're there.
You're all kinds of beautiful.
And if that's not a word I can use, you're
resplendent, numinous, healthy.
I am two months pregnant.
Monday this premiere, Tuesday this article, Wednesday
my first ultrasound, with my child's boneless arms in motion.
A memory I didn't know I could have.
Thursday I writeâIf I have a daughter, you can hold her. A son, too.
The two of you, tied to this week in my life.
jesus walks
Â
Â
Â
KANYE WEST
, “Jesus Walks,” line 6 of verse 1
HA HA HUM
In the chorus of one of my favorite songs are three throat-clearing soundsâ
sometimes depicted as
Ha Ha Hum
on lyrics websites such as
azlyrics.com
,
lyricstime.com
, and
anysonglyrics.com
.
A sound we make when we talk with the mouths of Jews.
Channukah, l'chaim, chutzpah.
Voiceless fricative.
Russians have a letter for it. In block, an x, in Cyrillic, two c's back to back.
In the words, good,
chorrosho
, and bad,
plocho
.
They have other letters I love, for
sh
,
tss
,
sht
,
szh
,
yoo
.
The sound Kanye makesâit's not unlike the French r.
How my name falls back into the mouth like it's collapsing.
Sa-cha
.
In Russian, the r would roll, as when my great-grandmother said her name,
as when my great-grandfather called to her.
My name means
princess
in Hebrew.
Kanye's means
the only one
in Swahili.
A language once written in Arabic script, now written with letters like ours.
Switched in the 1800's. Trying for sounds like
nz
and
nd
, to begin words.
The mouths we speak with are hidden by our other mouths.
HEARTBREAK
The couple, who have dated on and off since 2002, got engaged over a
lobster and pasta dinner during a vacation on the island of Capri in August 2006.
How does
People
magazine know this?
I hate to say things look like butterflies, but what should I sayâthe island
looks like motion? Like a liver?
It's an island.
You proposed to her and it looks like a butterfly.
The Italian map, covered in via, via, via. The Italian mountain. Citrus and gulls. I have never been to Italy, let alone to Capri. And I have never been to an island so small.
When the
New York Times
reporters write about
808s & Heartbreak
, they write how it came after “
 Â
” with the death of his mother in late 2007 and, in early 2008, breaking up with his fiancée.
They don't name her. Alexis Phifer.
If Alexis is the woman in “Heartless,” in the video, thank you
for covering her dress in stars.
I have planned my weddingâsent the invitations, tasted all the cakes, bought my dress, named for its sweetheart top, and sparkling. My mother has rsvP'd.
I got engaged in the courtyard of a museum in PhiladelphiaâMuseum of
Archaeology and Anthropology.
Mummies resting
behind us, and sculptures from China.
The past pushes us.
I lament what you have lost even if you do not still love her.
I think of all the coves of CapriâCala del Lupinaro, Cala del Rio, Cala di Mezzo, Cala Spravata, Cala Marmolata, Cala di Matermania. And Kapros, meaning wild boar.
LIKE THE POEMS DO
I ask,
“Who's that?”
and Noah answers,
“Mos Def.”
“Is Kanye rapping like Snoop Dogg there?”
“No. His jaw is wired shut.”
Another song,
“Is that Common?”
“Yes. They're friends. They're both from Chicago.”
Noah's been listening
to rap since middle school. He used to make tapes
off the radio and listen to them until they broke.
I grew up saying, I listen to everything but country
and rap.
Recently, I spent another evening researching Kanye.
This time
about his 2004 debut album,
College Dropout
.
“Through the Wire” came out fast, without permission for the sample of Chaka Khan's “Through the Fire.”
I tell Noah. We're on our computers,
across the room.
He pulls up Khan's song; I pull up Kanye's music video.
The room is a mess of sound.
I tell Noah how Kanye kisses his hand, places it
on a larger-than-life poster of Khan.
Is there a poem of Kanye as a teenager, loving
the woman who sings, too,
“I'm Every Woman”?
A smaller poster in his smaller room.
Noah with posters of Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill,
if he were the sort of boy to have posters.