I Think I'm Ready to See Frank Ocean

by Shayla Lawson

Overview

Each poem of I Think I’m Ready to See Frank Ocean riffs on a Frank Ocean song, paying homage to the man but also investigating oceans, The Ocean, and the similarity between heartbreak and break beats by blending Frank Ocean’s musical catalog with personal narrative and social critique. I Think I’m Ready to See Frank Ocean builds upon historicized representations of Ocean’s career in ekphrasis, carefully examining the intent of each composition as a metaphoric parallel to Black American legibility.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780989979788
Publisher:	Saturnalia Books
Publication date:	03/01/2018
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 7.40(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

SHAYLA LAWSON is the author of A Speed Education in Human Being and the chapbook PANTONE. She grew up in the bluegrass state and has always carried a fondness for oceans. Her work has appeared in print and online at Tin House, GRAMMA, ESPN, Salon, The Offing, Guernica, Colorado Review, Barrelhouse, & MiPOesias.

What People are Saying About This

Ross Gay

“I cannot pin this book down. I cannot easily categorize or articulate what this book is doing, or what it means. I cannot get to the bottom of the brilliance behind it, or the brilliance that brilliance makes. Sound familiar? Sound like the Ocean? Are you ready?”

Editorial Reviews

04/02/2018
Frank Ocean features as muse and guiding light to Lawson (A Speed Education in Human Being) in her second collection, with the singer-songwriter’s discography and persona serving as means to “wonder about humanity.” Lawson’s poems share titles with Ocean’s compositions and are grouped by album. In “Pilot Jones,” she uses the singer’s autobiographical details, such as his New Orleans youth, to showcase the consequences of unexpected loss: “Four hundred thousand/ heartbreaks. All carried away like the flood// he would become. Katrina:/ what she don’t drain she baptizes.” Yet in Ocean’s life, Lawson recognizes how loss can spur growth and inspire reinvention. She interprets the Ocean persona as the final step in a metamorphosis that sees college student “Lonny Breaux” (Ocean’s birth name) descend a sort of rabbit hole to Wonderland following the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina: “Katrina// rescinds & he becomes The Ocean, channels/ orange—the abstinence / of blue—like the sky/ up above has never seen the gulf.” The figure of Alice even appears in “Novacane,” and Lawson notes that, “By the time she gets/ to Frank, she is addicted/ to looking glasses & fingers/ laced heavy around her trachea.” Arresting images heighten visceral emotions throughout this fine collection, as Lawson finds strength in vulnerability and, in Ocean, a model of successful transformation. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Arresting images heighten visceral emotions throughout this fine collection, as Lawson finds strength in vulnerability and, in Ocean, a model of successful transformation.”

—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher