Poetry

Twenty years ago there was a life for each of us
to turn away from
or embrace. A song returns to remind me
of what I must have felt,
and when it’s over, I play it back again.

When death carts me off to the bottomlands, when I begin the long work of rising—

Death, whoever and whatever you are, tallest king of
tall kings, grant me these wishes: unstring my bones;
let me be not one thing but all things, and...

Beside the open window
on the cemetery side,
I drowsed as Preacher Lusk gripped
his Bible like a bat snagged
from the pentecostal gloom.

To honor the National Gallery of Art’s exhibition The Art of Romare Bearden, the first comprehensive Bearden retrospective in more than a decade, VQR asked National Book Award-finalist Kevin Young to respond to ten of Bearden’s...

He wrapped them carefully and tidily
in precious green silk.

& the initial premise?

I am holding a picture of my sister’s unborn child, its face
     seemingly reflective.

Some days there is nothing
of the blues
     I can use
so I put down
my pen & walk instead