Lullaby
Sleep, shelter me.
Shuffle
me back into the deck
where I belong—
Sing no shout
your favorite song
until I fall
into your empty arms.
Let me be what
dust has to be, settling
over everything
& I promise to dream
of new houses & old
loves no longer. I swear,
sweet sleep,
I will summon no one
if you make me
again mine.
Kevin Young's Watching the Good Trains Go By: A Suite of Poems to Accompany Collages by Romare Bearden is an extraordinary response to Bearden's works of art. Of course, I am very well aware that art generates and inspires art. However, Young's collection of poems in response to Bearden's collages exemplifies how brilliant art can inspire great poetry. Intuitively, my response to the poetry was to acknowledge the heavy Blues aesthetic each piece contains. Just like Blues music, each poem expresses the speaker's raw emotion whether it be despair, hope, or happiness. The reason Young's poetry works so well with Bearden's art is because Young's poems have layers to them like Bearden's collages. Obviously, Blues music is influential in both Beardern's and Young's work. I admire Young's poems because they add a contemporary twist to the genre of Blues poetry. Unlike traditional Blues poems, which are composed of repetition and have a specific rhyme scheme, Young's poems are not repetitious and are written in free verse. His use of line breaks is also very unique and mastered. The poet's style helps me as a reader to feel the emotion of the speaker of the poem. In the poem "Lullaby," the speaker metaphorically addresses Sleep as a superior with the power of allowing him or her to grasp a peace of mind. Out of all of the poetry responses, "Lullaby" is the most mellow. The poem shows the speaker softly requesting Sleep to allow him/her to return to his/her own peace of mind. For me, the poem raises the question: How important is ownership of one's self and being at peace with oneself?
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