Saul Williams, you muthafucker.

Incredible body of work.

Saul Williams is unquestionably one of the most important poets currently breathing. His contributions to hip-hop and modern poetry include film, theatre, poetry both written and performed as well as a number of vastly creative albums. This book compromises selections from some of his best work over the years as well as new work. It's a piece that manages to be political and personal, transcendental and introspective, joyful and furious.

"Pupil my sight with orange balls of light
And echo my plight
Through the corridors of metaphor
What else are we living for if not to create
Fiction and rhyme?
My purpose is to make my soul
Rhyme with my mind
Mind over matter
Minds create matter
Minds create fiction
As a matter of fact
As if matter were fact
Matter is fact
So spirit must be fiction"

If anyone ever trots out that irritatingly popular misconception 'all rappers ever talk about is guns, drugs and bitches,' throw some Saul Williams their way and let them have their 3rd eye squeegied.

I dig so much of the verse in here, but it really only comes alive when you set it to music. I'd put on a jazz record and rap it. Some of it comes across as hammy or obvious in print, but you can imagine how it would come alive in the contexts Williams has placed his words into on his recordings. What I really dig though is the more essayistic sections, which are endearing for how well they relay Williams's passion and frustration alike.

Every so often, I start to forget what it is that I find so electrifying about Saul Williams. When that happens, I just go read or listen to some of his work, and I remember.

His words, the way he blends, moves, and rhymes through, the double- and triple-meanings in everything. The back-to-back phrases like a clue from Jeopardy! and we just have to work out the relation(s).

If you know Saul Williams' work, I don't need to say much more about it. If not, here's a quick favorite excerpt.

"How could you not
Realize the power of word
After being forced
To serve a sentence?"

I haven't encountered Williams' work in over a decade but he's just as good as I remembered him to be. There were lines and sections that took my breath away. I can only imagine how they'd come to life when he performs!

I give the poetry 2 1/2 stars, as I felt like the same poem was being repeated over and over again. I also wasn't feeling that almost half this book is older material that continues to be recycled by Williams' publishers.

Big props however for the prose pieces where Williams speaks directly to his reader, creates the myth of the Dead Emcee Scrolls, and continually refers to the mythology throughout the text. The closing prose–an examination of the past, present and possible future of hip-hop as it will be defined by all MCs–is must read material for anyone who has fallen in (and out of) love with hip-hop.

If Hopkins lived today, he'd be this. Definitely check out the "inner breathlessness, outer restlessness." poem, even you dont get the book.

As a big Saul Williams fan, I had committed the outrageous omission of not having read his works. This is incredibly outrageous because for: 1) I admire the man immensely; 2) I am a huuuge rap fan and; 3) I love to read. So you combine two of my favorite things in the whole wide world, to listen to rap music and to read.
As I failed to expect, this combination was divine: it combines the lyrics I look for in rap music and the written rap form, two worlds brought together.
Not all rappers are capable of producing poetry, far from it only underground rappers do it today - I would go so far as to say - so it's a wonderful thing to see such a talented and capable emcee going at it

=)

Saul Williams succeeds and deserves all of the credit he's given.

Thank you Saul, I am on to your next work, be it a book or an album, whichever happens to be released first!

Those who burned, those still aflame, and the countless unnamed...

This earns five stars thanks to the mindblowingly good 'Co-Dead Language' - the written version of Saul's 'Coded Language', found on his first album Amethyst Rock Star. If you haven't heard it, or seen him read the poem, head over to YouTube now and give it a whirl.The rest of the book is also really good, and i'd hate to understate this, but seriously, this one poem in particular is just so damn good that it overshadows the rest, as good as it is.

I always get well-schooled by Mr. Williams. This collection is over ten years old, but it's still vital reading for poetry enthusiasts, and most current rap MCs would be well-advised to consider its contents. Saul's conceit here's pretty interesting: the poetry's not really his, it's his mystical and gradual translation of a book he happened upon by accident.

This book is awesome. If you have background music while reading (like hip-hop beats), you can fit the poetry into the music rhythmically.