Brown Quotes

“Everybody wants to go to heaven
but nobody wants to die
to get there.”
― Kevin Young, Brown: Poems

“The apocalypse sounds
like this--
black men breaking in

to steal back the thing
once stole
from them.”
― Kevin Young, Brown: Poems

“a calm that would undo
most anyone who

thought noise worse
than its opposite”
― Kevin Young, Brown: Poems

“A quiet

snowglobe of pain
I want to shake.
While the flakes fall

like ash we race
the train to reach the place
Emmett Till last

whistled or smiled
or did nothing.”
― Kevin Young, Brown: Poems

“A shack made of ribs.
A house made of out.

A car made of rust.
A smile made of doubt.”
― Kevin Young, Brown: Poems

“A finger
is a gun--
a wallet

is a gun, skin
a shiny pistol,
a demon, a barrel

already ready--
hands up
don't shoot--”
― Kevin Young, Brown: Poems

“There are gods
of fertility,
corn, childbirth,

& police
brutality--this last
is offered praise

& sacrifice
near weekly
& still cannot

be sated”
― Kevin Young, Brown: Poems

“Sixth grade
you didn't survive

just endured.”
― Kevin Young, Brown: Poems

“We were never young.”
― Kevin Young, Brown: Poems

“I was ten when
Mike Smiley, half-Indian,
skinny, brown-skinned,

brought the word jigaboo
to school
like lunch, or the flu,

fed him by his adopted
white father who said
that's what we called

them then. By noon
it was done--everyone
had a name for what had been

bothering them, some
thing utterly human
as hate.”
― Kevin Young, Brown: Poems