Kevin Coval: Poet, Rapper, Teacher

As a poet and artist, Kevin Coval often refers to the concept of “representing” which he describes simply as, “telling your story.” In that vain, Coval, a 1993 graduate of , has come a long way from his GBN days, but said Coval, Northbrook will always be a part of his story.

Lately, Coval has been in Michigan where he is conducting one of his many poetry camps. These days, he wears many hats: poet, hip-hop artist, teacher, organizer and performer. He travels the country sharing his craft, hoping his work inspires others to “represent” and tell their stories.

Earlier this year, Coval released his third book of poetry, L-vis Lives! His most ambitious effort thus far. Throughout the book, the prose forms a narrative as Coval takes on the persona of L-Vis, a white rapper in a world dominated by black performers.

“Nothing like this has every been written,” poet Patricia Smith wrote in her review of Coval’s latest book. “L-vis Lives! is a cultural touchstone, a book that will easily move into a space that’s been waiting for much too long.”

Likewise, rapper Mos Def called Coval “One of my favorite poets” and another rapper, Rhymefest, wrote, “Kevin Coval brings artistic taboo to the light in his new book L-vis Lives! His courage and fragility shows why he’s one of Chicago’s most talented writers." 

Throughout the book, Coval combines anecdotes from his own life with the stories of other iconic white performers such as Eminem, Elvis Presley, Beastie Boys and Vanilla Ice.

In one portion of the book, Coval recounts an experience from his days at . His friend, Mark Cohen, was just elected class president and Coval had the privilege to introduce his friend to the school.

“I introduced him by rhyming his introduction,” Coval said.

To go along with the release of L-Vis Lives!, Coval has been performing a one-man show at venus such Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theater. There he reenacted Cohen’s grade school introduction. A version of it at least. 

“The rhyme is more polished now,” he said. 

Coval is also teacher and organizer, and serves as the artistic director of the teen poetry slam series, Louder Than a Bomb. 

A few years ago, Louder Than a Bomb caught the eye of filmmaker, Jon Siskel, nephew of the late film critic Gene Siskel. In 2010, Siskel helped produce a documentary about Coval's poetry slam project, also called Louder Than a Bomb.

What began as just 50 or so kids reciting prose with one another, Louder Than a Bomb now attracts more than 1000 teens.

“As a result of the popularity of the movie, we’ve expanded Louder than a Bomb nationwide,” Coval said. 

Now, his brand of poetry competitions occur in Los Angeles and Lincoln, Nebraska. Eventually, Coval wants Louder Than a Bomb slams to reach a global stage, particularly Kenya.

Coval’s art often deals with issues of alienation, isolation and class warfare, seemingly unexpected topics for someone who in high school was involved with the Boys of Spartan Spirit, Student Association Board, and a member of the 1993 GBN basketball team that reached the quarter finals of the state tournament.

Yet, Coval said he felt isolated and alienated in high school, despite being popular among classmates. He used to spend hours alone in the reading about black historical and artistic figures, people he wasn’t learning about in high school. He recalls feeling confused by the wealth around him, and frustrated that the affluent, mostly Caucasian community of Northbrook wasn’t the “melting pot” he’d dreamed the world to be.

“I would have gotten straight A’s if we were studying Malcolm X,” said Coval, giving an example of some of the figures that interested him in high school. 

Coval also counts among his friends and mentors Bill Ayers, a retired professor from University of Illinois at Chicago, who founded a group in the 1960’s called the Weather Underground, which had reputed ties to a series of bombings including one that killed police officer, Brian V. McDonnell.

Coval said he didn’t know anything about Ayers’ past when they met and instead knew him only by his educational reputation. They remains friends to this day, and Coval said that Ayers is often a judge for Louder Than a Bomb. Coval said he considers Ayers a mentor that has helped Coval grow not only as a teacher, but as a person.

In L-vis Lives!, Coval has an unusually structured poem called “Bill Ayers in the Kitchen,” part of which looks like:

Bernadine may be speaking

in another country or at the office

late surrounded by legal pads

and legal documents trying to forge her way out

and a way out for others

                                            while a terrorist is in the kitchen

engaged in five conversations

with the earnestness of a schoolboy.

Ayers is equally praise worthy of his student, whose review of L-Vis Lives! reads, “Kevin Coval, Chicago bard, inspired teacher, and Pied Piper of poetry to a generation of hip-hop urban guerrillas, does with L-vis Lives! what good art demands: I was in orbit.” 

While Coval’s career has seen its highs, it hasn’t been without controversy. In a highly publicized spat, Coval’s invitation to a conference sponsored by J Street, an Israeli lobbying group, was revoked after it was discovered this his fellow performers, Josh Healey, wrote a poem comparing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to Nazi concentration camps. “Auschwitz is Palestine” the poem read.

Following the snub, Coval wrote a heated post on Huffington Post in which he praised activist, Lalia Al Arian.

“Not the Israeli army Refusnik, not the liberal Zionist apologist, not the Palestinian student who asked us to include more about the Palestinian people in our poems, not just the land or idea of nation-state, a point beautifully made and incredibly profound. No one shouted down moderator Lalia Al-Arian, brilliant journalist and activist, whose father was a Palestinian political prisoner in America, now freed because of his daughter's persistence. The crowd was cool and civil, though broad in opinion,” the blog read.

Al Arian’s dad, Sami Al Arian, was once convicted of a terror-related charge for ties to the group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Coval sometimes steps into controversy with his views on Israel and their policy toward Palestine. Coval has repeatedly referred to Israel’s treatment of Palestine as “apartheid.”

Coval told Patch that his Judaism, and the way that religion helped shape his life, will be the subject of his next book of poetry. Like his current book, it will also be a book that combines prose and narrative, while examining Judaism’s relationship with the surrounding world. Coval expects that book to come out in April 2013.

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