"Kanye’s Talking Again: A Review of Sarah Blake's 'Mr. West'" by Artur Jeragyan

Mr. West (Wesleyan UP, 2016) is a poetry collection by Sarah Blake, an author known both for her novels — including Naamah (Penguin Random House, 2019) and Clean Air (Algonquin, 2023) — and her poetry collections — including Let’s Not Live on Earth (Wesleyan UP, 2017) and the epic poem, In Springtime (Wesleyan UP, 2023). She previously published with MORIA, in the first issue, contributing the poems “Snow White’s in Texas” and “Snow White’s Dreaming” from a series of fairy-tale poems. In 2013, she was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. She now lives in England. One poem from Mr. West, “A Day at the Mall Reminds Me of America,” was selected by director Ayse Altinok to be made into a short film for Motionpoems.
Mr. West is divided into six sections: “Jesus Walks,” “The Fallible Face,” “Dear Donda,” “Aftermath,” “Dear Kanye,” and “Hybrid.” Blake explores her deeply-felt connection with the controversial superstar, Kanye West, covering major events in the artist’s life, while also drawing parallels to her own life. For instance, around the time that West’s mother, Dr. Donda West, passed away, Blake’s own grandfather was suffering from cancer, dying just a few months later.
If you know anything about Kanye West and his public persona, you would know that West is a man who was not afraid to speak his mind about relevant events and issues, be it, in any sense, political, or not. This book reflects how the public magnified West’s unfiltered thoughts, opinions, and emotions, drawing people to focus on and bring attention to him, growing his fan base of dedicated followers on social media, including the author herself.
The poem “Taylor Doesn’t Speak Out Against Racism,” in the “Aftermath” section, references the events of Taylor Swift winning the MTV Video Music Awards in 2009, when West came on stage to take the spotlight off of Swift, claiming that “Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time.” His action caused a large portion of the attendees to boo West off stage. West did not care much for the commotion he had caused, as he shrugged to the crowd before handing the microphone back to Swift. West would continue to go after Swift, making the episode and its aftermath mostly one-sided. West claims, “Taylor never came to my defense at any interview.” Blake expresses sympathy for West, suggesting he shouldn’t be blamed for everything that followed. She writes, “People are upset because Kanye’s talking about Taylor again,” highlighting how public outrage was often directed towards West specifically. People made racist remarks towards West, such as calling him King Kong, among other hateful and anti-Black rhetoric. Blake ends the poem with “I’m starting to blame her, too. She could sing a song about it // that makes a little more sense. She could say, Don’t hate him.” Blake criticizes the silence from public superstars like Swift and expresses sympathy for West as a way to blur the line between artist and fan, turning West’s controversy into a lens through which she explores her values, identity, and emotional truth.
Another poem that stood out to me was “Hate Is for Hitler,” also in the “Aftermath” section of the book. After reading this specific poem, it felt eerily prescient, as though it was hinting at the more inflammatory actions and statements by West, actions that would not manifest until almost a decade after the poem was written. In the poem, Blake writes about her own mother, who would tell her that “hate is for Hitler,” thus engraining into Blake’s vocabulary that the word “hate” was too powerful and severe of a word to be used casually. As a result, Blake writes that she would use tamer words than “hate,” such as “I don’t like . . . really don’t like . . . can’t stand.” Blake’s mother emphasized to her daughter that such strong language as “hate” should only be used for the worst of the worst, prompting Blake to wonder if Donda West ever taught her son to avoid such words. In recent years, West has been more erratic and hateful, specifically towards the Jewish population, spreading a lot of anti-semitic rhetoric and even positive affirmations about Hitler and the Nazi party on his Twitter account, which has since been deleted. Is this a cynical example of being inflammatory for the purpose of grabbing attention and generating spectacle? Or is it the real Kanye West?
After reading Mr. West, I’ve gained a new insight not only into West’s life and actions, but also into a poet whose work holds West in very high regard, or, at the very least, attempts to rehabilitate his image, asking questions about what drives anyone to behave the way they do. But, knowing the man West has become in recent years — spreading anti-Semitic rhetoric and pro-Nazi claims or apparently requiring his wife, Bianca Censori, to wear a sheer dress at the Grammys ceremony — I wonder if Blake still gives West the benefit of the doubt the way she did when she published this book?

artur jeragyan

Artur Jeragyan is MORIA's Creative Nonfiction Editor for Issue 15. He is currently seeking his degree from Woodbury University in Animation and Visual Effects. His aspirations are to work in the animation industry, develop his own animated series, and direct a movie based on his work. He spends his free time drawing and hanging out with friends, listening to music, and writing stories.