Olympic Butter Gold Format: Paperback

Jonathan Moody grew up during the Golden Ages of hip-hop and listened to rap that was as adventurous and diverse as his military upbringing. When rap’s Golden Ages expired, the music’s innovativeness and variety diminished. Moody’s second book, Olympic Butter Gold, winner of the 2014 Cave Canem Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize, responds to Chuck D’s claim that "if there was a HIP-HOP or Rap Olympics, I really don’t think the United States would get Gold, Silver or Brass." From the poem "Opening Ceremony," in the voice of a heroin addict struggling to use Lady Liberty’s torch to cook "The American Dream," to "Dear 2Pac," an autobiographical account of teaching Tupac Shakur’s poetry to engage high school students indifferent to literature, Moody shares a worldview that is simultaneously apocalyptic and promising.

JONATHAN MOODY received his MFA from the University of Pittsburgh and his BS in Psychology from Xavier University in Louisiana. He is a Cave Canem graduate fellow whose poetry has appeared in African American Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, The Common, Crab Orchard Review, good foot, Tidal Basin Review, Xavier Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, and the anthology Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem’s First Decade, among other publications. He is also the author of The Doomy Poems (2012). Moody teaches at Pearland High School and lives in Fresno, Texas, with his wife and son.