Southern Migrant Mixtape

Trees become wood / then thump against / concrete—damming / the river altogether.Vividly, from a post-American century, Vernon Keeve III–a post-millennial, book-loving AfricanAmerican–shares, reflects and reports on life lived at global split-levels. Southern Virginia-born, gay, comfortably reared, poet-storyteller Keeve takes unblinking looks at how the damage and ravages of so-called white privilege split and splintered the world. Upbringing, family, education, world-outlook, environment, spirituality–all of it trembles here on edge. Mamie Till said you could smell her / son’s decomposing body from miles/ away in uninterrupted heat of a 1955 /Indian Summer when she forced the/ America to open his casket, and see what it had done. //The decomposition of Emmett / is still happening.
–Al Young California’s Poet Laureate Emeritus

Vernon Keeve’s Southern Migrant Mixtape, is a beautiful and historic analog move of memory as poems and prose, to record. On his tracks, Keeve soulfully, sensually and vulnerably lays down his journey. The story songs are full of queer ripening and racial awakening, mother tongue and father wit—all at play with the specificity of the colors, sounds, textures, smells and monuments of the country. This collection crackles with blackness, queerness, spirit, grit, trauma, surrender, and joy and the distortions of the south. You are left knowing that what is shared, curated by the writer’s heart, is dedicated to you and your story.
– Marvin K. White, author of four collections of poetry including Our Name Be Witness; and Last Rights.