L-vis Lives!: Racemusic Poems

L-vis is an imagined persona, a representation of artists who have used and misused Black music. Like so many others who gained fame and fortune from their sampling, L-vis is as much a sincere artist as he is a thief. In Kevin Coval's poems, L-vis' story is equal parts forgotten history, autobiography, and re-imaginings. We see shades of Elvis Presley, the Beastie Boys, and Eminem, and meet some of history's more obscure “whiteboy” heroes and anti-heroes: legendary breakdancers, political activists, and music impresarios.

A story of both artistic theft and radical invention, L-vis Lives! is a poetic novella on all of the possibilities and problems of “post-racial” American culture—where Black art is still at times only fully accepted in a white face, and every once in a while an “L-vis” comes along to step in to the void.

i am a hero

to most. the great hope

of something other.

a complex back-story.

something other than

the business of my father.

blands antonym.

jim crows black sheep.

the forgotten son

left to rise in the darkness

among the dis

carded in the wild

of working class, single

mother hoods. a hero

who transcends

who translates the dis

satisfactions of the plains;

kids of kurt cobain,

method man amphetamine,

the odd Iowan who digs dirt

and lights beyond the pig yard,

spits nebraskan argot,

hero to the heart

land, middle brow(n) america

"A new, glowing voice in the world of literature."—Studs Terkel

"L-vis is an unstinting excavation of race and culture, art and ownership. Though dubbed 'post-racial,' Coval reminds us America is a country in which race is always receding but ever returning to the center of our consciousness. With poignancy, humor, and no small amount of soul, Coval has fashioned poetry for the present."—Adam Bradley, co-editor, The Anthology of Rap

i am a hero

to most. the great hope

of something other.

a complex back-story.

something other than

the business of my father.

bland's antonym.

jim crow's black sheep.

the forgotten son

left to rise in the darkness

among the dis

carded in the wild

of working class, single

mother hoods.

L-vis Lives is the tale of an archetype, an American anomaly that has become cliché: the white boy reared by black music. In this original poetry collection, Kevin Coval combines and re-imagines Elvis Presley, Eminem, the Beastie Boys, and other artists who have used and misused black culture into a contemporary "L-vis" character.

L-vis loves the music. He is both a sincere artist and a thief, naïve and poor. L-vis represents what is possible in cross-cultural understanding, and what is problematic. L-vis lives at the center of the American experiment. This is his story.

Kevin Coval is the author of Slingshots and Everyday People, and co-founder and artistic director of Louder Than a Bomb: The Chicago Teen Poetry Festival. A regular contributor to Chicago Public Radio, and a four-time HBO Def Poet, Coval teaches in schools around Chicago.

Patricia Smith is a multiple award-winning poet, author of Blood Dazzler, finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and one of NPRs Top Books of 2008, and the National Poetry Series winner Teahouse of the Almighty. Smith is also a four-time National Poetry Slam champion.