At the Kevin Young Reading — By Kevin Rabas

I’m so choked up
at the Kevin Young reading
that I will my copy
of To Repel Ghosts
to my student, Ralvell.
I write a note, say, “Take this book,
and ask Young to sign it, keep
these words in remembrance,”
though I make it to the water fountain,
clear my throat,
spot my student
chatting Young up,
two black men
in a white sea, a moment
for which we raced
100 miles, sailing
blacktop in a borrowed
college car.

~ Kevin Rabas

Kevin Rabas is the Poet Laureate of Kansas. He teaches at Emporia State University, where he leads the poetry and playwriting tracks. He has seven books, including Lisa’s Flying Electric Piano, a Kansas Notable Book and Nelson Poetry Book Award winner.

Guest Editor Tyler Robert Sheldon is a Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of First Breaths of Arrival (Oil Hill Press, 2016), and Traumas (Yellow Flag Press, 2017). His poetry, fiction, and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in such venues as Quiddity International Literary Journal, The Midwest Quarterly, Coal City Review, The Prairie Journal of Canadian Literature, The Dos Passos Review, Entropy Magazine, and others. He earned his MA in English at Emporia State University, and is now an MFA candidate at McNeese State University. View his work at tyrsheldon.wixsite.com/trspoetry.

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