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To Repel Ghosts

The Remix

Author Kevin Young

Paperback

$24.00 US

Knopf

5.96"W x 8.94"H x 0.81"D | 15 oz | 12 per carton

On sale Sep 27, 2005 | 320 Pages | 9780375710230

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Revamped from its original "double album" version of 350 pages into this unique "remix," To Repel Ghosts captures the dynamic work and brief life of the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

In spare, jazzlike verse Kevin Young tells the story of Basquiat's rise from the mock prophet and graffiti artist SAMO to one of the hottest painters of the 1980s ("blue-chip Basquiat / playing the bull / market"), exploring the artist's bouts with fame and heroin, mourning his untimely death, and celebrating his legacy. Along the way Young riffs on Basquiat's paintings and sayings, on the music he loved, on the artists he ran with (Andy Warhol and Keith Haring, among them), and on the black heroes (Charlie Parker, Muhammad Ali, Billie Holiday) who inspired him.

Young's poetic channeling of Basquiat--a jostling, poignant brand of downtownspeak--makes for an urban epic in the tradition of Langston Hughes's "A Dream Deferred." To Repel Ghosts, along with Young's Jelly Roll: A Blues and Black Maria, his recent book of film noir verse, forms an American trilogy--Devil's Music--that explores other art forms through poetry. In its creation, Yound has become a poet whose work speaks both for and beyond his genre, with a music all its own.

KEVIN YOUNG is the author of fifteen books of poetry and prose. He is the poetry editor of The New Yorker, where he hosts the Poetry Podcast, and is the editor of nine other anthology volumes, including African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song. View titles by Kevin Young

WINNER | 2006
New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age

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About

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Awards

WINNER | 2006
New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age