To honor the National Gallery of Art’s exhibition The Art of Romare Bearden, the first comprehensive Bearden retrospective in more than a decade, VQR asked National Book Award-finalist Kevin Young to respond to ten of Bearden’s...
He wrapped them carefully and tidily in precious green silk.
& the initial premise? I am holding a picture of my sister’s unborn child, its face seemingly reflective.
Some days there is nothing of the blues I can use so I put down my pen & walk instead
Where will you go, little vagabond, anonymous familiar,
Best advice I ever heard I learned at the poker table: Shut up & deal.
The years of my youth, my sensual life—how clearly I see their meaning now.
Like a mouth set in the frozen ground. & how our childhoods were informed by it—this innate sense of something missing.
