In retrospect, Kanye West’s fourth studio album, 2008’s 808s & Heartbreak didn’t get it’s just due, mainly because it was labeled as an “Auto-Tune” album. That being said, it really resonated with Sarah Blake who used the melancholy project as the basis for publishing a series of Kanye West poems she titled Mr. West.
“The first poem I wrote, ‘Kanye’s Circulatory System,’ was actually still about my grandfather,” she recalls during a recent interview with Page Six. “Kanye’s mother, Donda West, died when my grandfather was dying of cancer (and he died a few months later). When Kanye’s fourth album, ‘808s & Heartbreak,’ came out, I had a small collection of poems about loss. Seeing how grief could be experienced publicly and privately in America struck me. When I wanted to write new poems — poems that took me away from what I had been writing — I wrote about Kanye.”
And what does the famous subject think about his life being analyzed in a poetic fashion? Blake says “she reached out” to Kanye’s copyright lawyer but didn’t get the official authorization or stamp of approval. Still, she is proud of her literary achievement.
I see the book as a conversation with America, so the more response it gets, the more the book grows for me,” Blake continued.
“At the end of my poem about ‘Jesus Walks,’ I write, ‘Kanye, if only I could write a poem for you and not about you.” That’s how I still feel. It was a pleasure to write a book about Kanye West. Difficult and heartbreaking, but also a pleasure. I’m so grateful that he is in this world and creating. But what I’d love to do is write a poem that was actually for him, a gift of a poem.”
Mr. West is available on Amazon right now.
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Photo: WENN
