Tony Keith Jr. started writing poems at age 13, and by his senior year of high school in 1999, he’s a well-liked kid with a beautiful girlfriend, a poet voted Prom King and the first in his family to go to college.
But Keith’s perfect life is an illusion: His family is struggling financially after his mother split from father; his grades aren’t high enough to get into college without effort; and he sees the Boogeyman everywhere he goes. Keith’s attempts to hide his Blackness and his gayness warp him into something he cannot recognize and give rise to the Boogeyman, which “is after [his] Blackness.” As high school ends, Keith needs to figure out who he is and if he can embrace what he has tried so hard to reject.
Now a spoken word poet and a hip-hop educational leader, Keith explores his adolescence in How the Boogeyman Became a Poet (Katherine Tegen, $19.99, 9780063296008), a memoir-in-verse that includes poems he wrote in high school as well as photos of teenage Keith.
Keith’s love of poetry and language—and the power of wielding both—radiates from the pages. Beginning in his teen years, he rejects the notion that he must write like the white authors his English teacher loves and embraces the African American vernacular he speaks, refusing to compromise on its validity. Keith reflects that “spending time with [his] poems must be like those therapy sessions [he] see[s] white folks go to in the movies,” and ultimately it is his poetry that wards off the Boogeyman and empowers him to embrace his personal truths. Keith builds a strong personal community—”him: me: us: we”—even as he moves between friend groups in college, giving him a place he can return to and people he can fight for.
Though the details of the memoir—placing CD-ROMs in a shared family computer and sneakily paying for a subscription for AOL Instant Messenger—firmly place Keith’s life in the ‘90s, the things Keith endures will resonate with contemporary teenagers. The challenges of college, the struggles of understanding sexual identity, and the pressure to conform as a gay and Black person in a world that centers heterosexuality and whiteness are still relevant. Teens will find solace in his survival and flourishing as well as obtaining a glimpse of a fascinating time gone by.
Keith’s strong on-page voice will leave readers wanting to listen to his spoken word performances, but for those who prefer text, pair How the Boogeyman Became a Poet with Black Flamingo by Dean Atta, All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson or Disorientation: Being Black in the World by Ian Williams.
