Up the Street Around the Corner
Author: Besskepp
Genre: Poetry, short stories
Up The Street Around the Corner by Cory Besskepp Cofer, touches on the ups and downs of a boy, raised by his single mother, living an urban-nomadic life. Telling his story through the soul of an innocent child, Cofer masterfully injects the conscience of an adult enlightened, with his heartfelt narrative blurring poetry and prose for all ages and walks of life. Delivered as a collection of evocative vignettes, Up the Street Around the Corner examines the close of the 20th Century, chronicling the music, hair and the hard realities of eviction notices, welfare, violence and life on the move. Up the Street Around the Corner is the uplifting story of a young man making his way and defying all odds. Cofer lends a universal and powerful voice of hope for everyone, coming of age, in the face of sparse opportunity and impossible circumstances.
Besskepp
HBO Def Poet, Author, and member of two National Poetry Slam Teams, Cory Besskepp Cofer mergers originality and heritage with performances at countless colleges, cafes, arenas, festivals and coffee houses. Twice named teacher of the year, he was featured by The Los Angeles Times for his academic innovation that incorporates Hip Hop and poetry into the classroom. By mixing classical structure with an urban flavor, Besskepp creates literature that deconstucts the complex issues facing youth today through non-elitist language. In 2005, his Hip Hop Theater Play, Homeless Beatboxer was twice featured at the REDCAT Theater at Disney Hall. His poetry reading (A Mic & Dim Lights) in Pomona, CA is one of the largest and longest running poetry venues in the country.
PURCHASE BESSKEPP'S CD THE HEY MOMENT
PURCHASE UP THE STREET AROUND THE CORNER
Available for readings, performances, workshops, etc. Booking contact:
Praise for Besskepp
and Up the Street Around the Corner
Cory Besskepp Cofer is a writer whose ink is the blood of our times, whose voice moves sweetly through a room, then rumbles to the core of our being with truths, stories, challenges. I'd read this book and then look for Besskepp's work wherever you can. Or catch a reading. But don't let this man's blessings and art pass you by, we need people like Besskepp more than ever.
- Luis Rodriguez, poet and writer, author of Always Running, La Vida Loca, Gang Days in LA.
Cory Besskepp Cofer's Up the Street Around the Corner only further exemplifies his ability to make readers feel like they are welcomed participants in his stories. This book demonstrates adept writing fluidity as Besskepp successfully incorporates different writing styles including prose, spoken word, and even simply emboldened text words that jump off the page at the perfect moment to set a mood or background and are as effective as paintbrushes in creating a picture or setting that immerse readers in the scents, sounds, and tastes of the author s childhood. You can just taste the garlic chicken! Up the Street Around the Corner is truly a show and tell to beat all. Not once, but twice did I ward off sleep to be taken under by the book s spell. Nicole Klaymoon's illustrations also provide an incredible narrative face to the book s text. I found myself wanting to trace each sketched line with my finger to find out where they led and how they all connected to the story.
- Anne Knight, Digress Magazine
Up The Street Around the Corner is snapshots of the big picture--mug shots of racism and poverty snapped by a man who's lived them both. These stories are short but they say so much--like squeezing a ship into a bottle and then watching it expand to full size.
- Lee Ballinger, West Coast Editor, Rock & Rap Confidential
Besskepp's work is sincere, original, and powerful. One of the hallmarks of his work is the thoroughly successful way he brings the personal into the public space, the way Besskepp crafts story and image to make us see ourselves and our own families reaching up from his text. He succeeds in spanning that gossamer bridge - from the personal to the universal.
- Jerry Quickley, Playwright and Poet
Cory Besskepp Cofer is well known in Southern California as a conscious poet and poetry host. His first collection of short stories take his already formidable skills and raise the bar...
Disclaimer: I met Cory "Besskepp" Cofer in 2000 at the Hollywood open mic Da Poetry Lounge. It was kind of a Renaissance for the whole slam movement, and the level of talent in the room was intimidating and inspiring. Besskepp took the mic and started talking about Special Education. His tone and rhythm were hip hop, his words born from someone who knew what the hell he was talking about. It was funk that could not be faked.
Nearly a decade later, after two Teacher of the Year awards and an amazing stint as host of A Mic and Dim Lights (one of SoCal's biggest weekly open mics), Besskepp has channeled his energies from poetry and rhyming to a collection of short stories, Up The Street Around The Corner. The result is vintage Besskepp in a whole new package.
The thing about Cofer's prose is that it's really raw, like Iceberg Slim, if Slim had been born in the Hip Hop era. Its terseness and accessibility are a lot like his verse; it can make you laugh, it can make you cry, and it always makes you think. He tells tales on the page that capture the best parts of the oral tradition--the little nuances that make a good story into a great one. Everything from a neighbor who calls young Cory sneaky because he was quiet, to what Lou's liquor sold, to sneaking a first kiss in The Alley, come to life under Besskepp's nuanced pen. The illustrations by Nicole Klaymoon create a great abstract vibe to lighten and enhance the grounded words on the page.
Up The Street, the first offering by Dimlights Publishing, is a book I'd offer up to the literati and the homeboys alike. If you can't glean something real from these words, you may be heart-dead. Cory Besskepp Cofer knocks yet another artform straight out the box. And I'm gonna be one of those folks to say I knew him when.
- Ratpack Slim, Poet
PURCHASE BESSKEPP'S CD THE HEY MOMENT
PURCHASE UP THE STREET AROUND THE CORNER
Available for readings, performances, workshops, etc. Booking contact:
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