I’ve always been a (somewhat confused, but avid nonetheless) fan of Saul Williams. My first exposure to him was a fabulous song that I heard on the Ninjatune (remember them?) ten-year box set (Xen Cuts, 2000) called “Twice The First Time,” the introductory lyrics proceeding thusly:

“I will never rhyme over tracks
Niggas on the chain gang used to do that.
(Hooah!)
Waaaaaaay back.”

Almost immediately on the heels of hearing (and loving) that song, I caught him appearing on DJ Krust’s Drum & Bass swan song “Coded Language” in which he absolutely decimated the title track. And said ‘In which’ alot, incidentally. I blogged about that song when I first got here…it is…something.

So then, 8 or 9 years go by, and Mr. Williams begins a particularly unfamous (but quite spectacular) collaboration with one of my heroes, Trent Reznor. The album they created together is hyper-real, both good and bad, intense and accessible. If you haven’t heard it, you should check it out, mostly because it sounds like Public Enemy as rapped by Allen Ginsburg produced by, well, Trent Reznor.

But this is a book recommendation. I knew that Saul Williams was a poet first and a rapper/performer/singer second, but I had never checked out his writing until a few weeks ago. I noticed , said the shotgun to the head. sitting on the bookshelf and, despite it’s being published by MTV books, gave it a spin. I was not disappointed.

The book posits a rather grand thesis: one that involves a kiss that changes the way the narrator sees things…a kiss that changes the world. I won’t spoil it for you, but don’t get caught up in the theme…I think it’s just there to be there. What you really get is a pretty naked exposure to some classic, stream-of-consciousness Saul Williams.

Where he’s at his best is when you can hear his verbal delivery in the text. There are segments of this book (technically, it’s a book-length poem…a very quick read) that are so loaded with ideas that they’re a bit hard to get through, but there are many other pages that are clear, concise, and deadly. His economy is brutal, as is his slant rhyme and meter. One page in particular stands out…

6000 feet above sea level / 3300 bodies disassembled / the head bone’s connected to the cock pit / knee jerk ass backwards  / dancing slaves in a mosh pit

punk rock of gibraltar roll out nothing’s new / mo’ blood dyes the mo hawk only this time it’s you / and you never loved her for what she possessed  / you powdered her face and came on her head-dress

I’ve included an image of that particular page, just in case.

Which of course brings up the other aspect of this book/poem: Williams finds a pretty effective way to make up for his lack of beats, inflection. With a little prompting from the likes of Updike and Cummings, he employs a rather small set of typographical tricks (different sizes, alignment, line breaks) to make his points where he needs to. Er, wants to.

These are no iambic pentameter epic sonnets. The ‘poetry’ is very beat. Very O’Hara. With maybe just a dash of cranky TS Eliot, but I’m not sure. (Edit: OK, enough with the name dropping, I know, but imagine the lovechild of TS Eliot and Zack de la Rocha. That’s getting there. In some ways.)

All in all, you may hate poetry. You may hate Saul Williams. Either way, this is what poetry has become in many aspects of literature. Gone is the pure beat…it has been replaced with Beats. The fact that Saul Williams has made a place for himself—not just in hip-hop but in ‘music’, as well as ‘real’ literary circles—is pretty amazing when you consider just how inflammatory and provocative his medium can be.

- Hateball