From Publishers Weekly
Poet and performance artist Beatty's ( Big Bank Take Little Bank ) second collection is obviously meant to be performed: the long poems read like a course in pop culture, covering everything from TV reruns to meditation and Mickey Mouse. Summoning up such black heroes as James Brown, Paul Robeson and Charles Mingus, he raises fascinating questions about the relationship of the African American past with present realities of a racially divided society. One poem, appropriately titled "Verbal Mugging," suggests he's arrived at a position that combines anger with humor. He can become didactic at times, but the writing is so lyrical that readers don't feel shouted at or wrongfully accused. The imagery is vivid: describing a black poet he feels sold out to the establishment, he speaks of his "platforms" being replaced by "hush puppies"; in another poem he depicts his house as a "shooting gallery" where he "used to play connect the dots with the pock marks and scars / on my daddys arms." As good as he is, Beatty writes in one pitch which grows tiresome after a while, but it isn't long before some startling new image comes along and screams out for attention.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Once described as the "premier bard of hip hop," Beatty reflects the stylistic and thematic influence of jazz, comic books, and kung-fu films as well as rap music. In his most recent collection, rhythms are sharply, almost militarily, accented, and he writes to confront as well as enliven. References to pop culture appear rapid-fire throughout Beatty's historical and social observations, and one poem's title, "Verbal Mugging," sums up the mood Beatty tries to conjure. Sometimes he comes across sounding arrogant, as when, in "Sitting on Other People's Cars," he lazily places himself alongside jazz legends in importance ("This mingus CD / reminds you of me"), and sometimes his diatribes are hackneyed. But much of his work is promising. "Two Pink Dots? You Positive?" is a compelling description of unwanted pregnancy whose verses mix pathos with humor, and the pseudohaiku, "Why That Abbott and Costello Vaudeville Mess Never Worked with Black People," shorter than its title, is hilarious. Aaron Cohen
