It’s a book that views “newness” as something more than a one-time affair. It’s a book about climbing back down, about watching the mountaintop crumble behind him, about moving on. And there, in the face of divine revelation, he remains unsatisfied. It’s a book about a prophet who, unsatisfied with the ground he walks upon, climbs a mountain looking for God. The image of Mike Tyson as “the baddest man on the planet” is perhaps what he will be most remembered for in the collective memory of the sporting public, but it isn’t where Revelation: An Apocalypse in Fifty-Eight Fights leaves him. Tyson would come out wearing only black shoes and black trunk-no socks, no robes-pure gladiator.
I’m not sure if this can be correctly counted as a “song,” but Tyson’s walkout music against Michael Spinks in 1988 was the stuff of nightmares.
I was listening to a lot of Audioslave following Chris Cornell’s 2017 death by suicide, and most of the edits to Revelation were done to the sounds of Tom Morello’s unearthly howling guitar riffs and Cornell’s growling apocalyptic vocals.īonus) Tom Alonso – “ The Sound of Ambient Noise and the Clanking of Chains“ I don’t listen to music when I write (I find it distracting), but I often play music when revising and editing. So please, dig in, have a listen, and immerse yourself in the musi c.ġ) 2Pac – “Letz Get It On (Ready 2 Rumble)” Some of these are songs he played while walking into the ring, while others I played while writing my book. Some of the songs reference Mike Tyson, providing more layers to the subject. Some of the songs presented in this playlist are referenced in the poems, and their inclusion here feels like a natural extension of those poems. Every one of Revelation ‘s fifty-eight poems, each exactly 100 words long, corresponds to one of Mike Tyson’s fights they are immersed within the squared circle, circumscribed by its ropes. That said, it is also without a doubt a book about boxing. So yes, Revelation: An Apocalypse in Fifty-Eight Fights is “about” many things: I would say that at its core, it is a book about how we deal with obstacles-physical and spiritual-how we transform those obstacles and how they transform us. Dream, the boss character who replaced Mike Tyson after his removal from the video game Punch-Out!!, haunts several poems.
An extended analogy connects Mike Tyson to the Old Testament prophet Elijah. An epigraph from Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses establishes a theme of “newness” entering the world. Like any book of poetry, there are of course layers. That is the world it is immersed in-those boxing rings that Mike Tyson dominated in the twenty years between 19.
#LIL WAYNE KNOCKOUT SAMPLE PROFESSIONAL#
On its surface, my book is about the professional fights of Mike Tyson.
#LIL WAYNE KNOCKOUT SAMPLE SERIES#
The series editor, Christopher Forrest, likens the Series to a curiosity shop-you don’t know what you’ll expect to find next, but you can expect that it will be interesting, unusual, curious. The series aims to highlight writing that immerses its readers in the unfamiliar, providing entrance to subcultures, niches, and other unconventional spaces. My book Revelation: An Apocalypse in Fifty-Eight Fights has the honor of being the first book released through Press 53’s new Immersion Poetry Series.