Mr. West covers the main events in superstar Kanye West’s life while also following the poet on her year spent researching, writing, and pregnant. The book explores how we are drawn to celebrities—to their portrayal in the media—and how we sometimes find great private meaning in another person’s public story, even across lines of gender and race. Blake’s aesthetics take her work from prose poems to lineated free verse to tightly wound lyrics to improbably successful sestinas. The poems fully engage pop culture as a strange, complicated presence that is revealing of America itself. This is a daring debut collection and a groundbreaking work. An online reader’s companion will be available at http://sarahblake.site.wesleyan.edu.
Table of Content
MR. WEST
‘Runaway’ Premieres in Los Angeles on October 18, 2010
JESUS WALKS
Ha Ha Hum
Heartbreak
Like the Poems Do
Con Moto
Jesus Walks
The Week Kanye Joined Twitter
Kanye’s Digestive System
Seeing Kanye
THE FALLIBLE FACE
Mythic
God Created Night and It Was Night
Kanye’s Skeletal System
The Fallible Face
This Is Not the First Time I’ve Wondered
In Song
So Kanye Transformed Himself, Producer to Superstar
DEAR DONDA
Adventures
Kanye’s Circulatory System
I Want a House to Raise My Son In
On November 10th, 2007, Donda West Died
Dear Donda
Runaway
AFTERMATH
Three Months, to the Day, Before Taylor Turned Twenty, But Kanye
Aftermath
Hate for Kanye
A Day at the Mall Reminds me of America
Taylor Doesn’t Speak Out Against Racism
It’s Hard Not To Be Moved
Hate Is For Hitler
Because Kanye Isn’t King Kong or Emmett Till or a N****
DEAR KANYE
My Summer with Kanye
Watching Weeks
I Try Not To See Myself as a Mother Figure
Dear Kanye
After Donda Died, Kanye Dated Amber
Suge Knight
Kanye as a Quantum Particle Yet To Be Observed
HYBRID
God’s Face Over Gold
Twilight: Starring Kanye
Hybrid
Gaza
Teeth
Kanye Raps, ‘I••••••••••••••••••••••••’ Part 1
Kanye Is Glamorous
I No Longer Have to Look Up Dates Like Your Birthday, June 8, 1977
Kanye Raps, ‘••••••••••••••••••••••••’ Part 2
Notes and Further Reading
Acknowledgments
About the author
Sarah Blake is the author of poetry collections In Springtime, and epic poem of survival with a gender-neutral protagonist; Let’s Not Live On Earth, featuring the long form science fiction poem The Starship and Mr. West an unauthorized lyric biography of Kanye West. Blake’s debut novel, Naamah, a provocative imagining of the story of Noah, won a National Jewish Book Award for debut fiction. Her second novel, Clean Air, was published in 2023. Blake has taught at the College of New Jersey, the University of Texas and Penn State, where she was co-coordinator of the MFA Reading Series. She holds a MA in English from the University of Texas and a MFA from Penn State.More ebooks from the same author(s) / Editor
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