L-vis Lives!

September 15, 2011
Poet Coval (Everyday People, 2008) takes on the sensitive subject of white artists' appropriation of black music and culture in a radically candid collection. Referring to himself as whiteboy in nimble, funny, and self-mocking poems, Coval remembers growing up in a Chicago suburb, finding wisdom in rap, and trying to emulate black kids. The whiteboy, he writes, went to / the library cuz Chuck D / used big words. Coval also dissects with acute discernment the slang of separationthat is, how language demarcates a line between white and black and what happens when individuals cross it. In daring, historically grounded, and socially cathartic poems, Coval creates the persona L-vis, a whiteboy who uses and misuses Black cultural production, calling out not only Elvis Presley but also Al Jolson, the Beastie Boys, Eminem, and himself. Widening his inquiry into cross-cultural forays, Coval considers John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban, and asks the pivotal question: What does the whiteboy do / when he realizes that everything / around him is a lie? Coval's air-clearing honesty about violent and insidious racism and authenticity and creativity is blazing and liberating.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)