Kevin Coval is an American poet. Coval is a Chicago-based writer who is known for exploring topics such as race,
hip-hop culture
Hip hop or hip-hop is a culture and art movement that was created by African Americans, Latino Americans and Caribbean Americans in the Bronx, New York City. Hip hop culture is characterized by four key elements: rapping, DJing and turntabli ...
, Chicago history, and
Jewish-American
American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by religion, ethnicity, culture, or nationality. Today the Jewish community in the United States consists primarily of Ashkenazi Jews, who descend from diaspora J ...
identity in his work. He is also known for his appearances in four seasons of the
Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...
-winning television series
Def Poetry Jam
''Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry'', better known as simply ''Def Poetry Jam'' or ''Def Poetry'', is a spoken word poetry television series hosted by Mos Def and airing on HBO between 2002 and 2007. The series features performances by establ ...
on
HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...
.
Education
Coval attended
Glenbrook North High School
Glenbrook North High School (also known as GBN) is a public high school in Northbrook, Illinois, a north suburb of Chicago, United States. It was established in 1953 and is part of the Northfield Township High School District 225.
In 2022, it ...
, graduating in 1993.
After high school, Coval attended
Ohio University
Ohio University is a Public university, public research university in Athens, Ohio. The first university chartered by an Act of Congress and the first to be chartered in Ohio, the university was chartered in 1787 by the Congress of the Confeder ...
, briefly studying abroad at
Swansea University
, former_names=University College of Swansea, University of Wales Swansea
, motto= cy, Gweddw crefft heb ei dawn
, mottoeng="Technical skill is bereft without culture"
, established=1920 – University College of Swansea 1996 – University of Wa ...
before he left school to play semi-pro basketball in
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
.
Career
In 1996, Coval returned to Chicago and began working different jobs to pay rent, including as a furniture delivery man, caterer, and waiter. He also began performing his poetry at open mics around the city.
In 1997, Coval became a regular at open mics at the Alt-X bookstore.
He went on to perform at venues such as Mad Bar, Estelle’s, and the
Green Mill Cocktail Lounge
The Green Mill Cocktail Lounge (or Green Mill Jazz Club) is an entertainment venue on Broadway in Uptown, Chicago. It is known for its jazz and poetry performances, along with its connections to Chicago mob history.
History
Originally named Pop ...
.
Coval was named artistic director of ''Young Chicago Authors'', an organization that sends professional writers to schools to teach, in 1999.
In 2001, Coval co-founded the youth performance-poetry competition
Louder Than a Bomb
Rooted & Radical Youth Poetry Festival (formerly named Louder Than a Bomb) is an annual youth poetry slam in Chicago every spring. Founded in 2001 by Kevin Coval and Anna West of the nonprofit organization Young Chicago Authors. It is now the ...
with Anna West. By 2017, the competition was considered the largest youth performance-poetry competition in the world.
Coval was removed from his position as artistic director at Young Chicago, after accusations that he had ignored sexual assault allegations within the organization.
Poetry
His 2017 collection ''A People's History of Chicago'', whose title is inspired by
Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922January 27, 2010) was an American historian, playwright, philosopher, socialist thinker and World War II veteran. He was chair of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, and a political scien ...
's ''
A People's History of the United States
'' A People's History of the United States'' is a 1980 nonfiction book by American historian and political scientist Howard Zinn. In the book, Zinn presented what he considered to be a different side of history from the more traditional "funda ...
'', comments in 77 poems, one for each neighborhood in Chicago, on the city, its history, and the people that live in it, from its Native American beginnings and its appropriation by whites to the present day, the inauguration of
Rahm Emanuel
Rahm Israel Emanuel (; born November 29, 1959) is an American politician and diplomat who is the current United States Ambassador to Japan. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served two terms as the 55th Mayor of Chicago from 2011 ...
and the World Series win by the
Chicago Cubs
The Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The Cubs compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as part of the National League (NL) Central division. The club plays its home games at Wrigley Field, which is located ...
. Along the way he comments on
Robert de LaSalle
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honou ...
's mispronunciation of the Native American word "checagou", which he bastardizes with his "misshapen mouth", erasing its original history.
In 2019, Coval published the poetry collection ''Everything Must Go: Life and Death of an American Neighborhood'', which examined the topic of gentrification in
Wicker Park, Chicago
Wicker Park is a neighborhood in the West Town community area of Chicago, Illinois, west of the Kennedy Expressway, east of Humboldt Park, and south of the Bloomingdale Trail, known for its hipster culture, art community, nightlife, and foo ...
and featured illustrations from ''Langston Allston''. The collection was a finalist for the 2019
Chicago Review of Books
The ''Chicago Review of Books'' is an online literary publication of StoryStudio Chicago which reviews recent books covering diverse genres, presses, voices, and media. The magazine was started in 2016 and Adam Morgan is the founding editor-in-c ...
Award for Poetry.
Coval has also published poems in several anthologies, including ''Born to Use Mics: Reading Nas’s Illmatic'', ''Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop,'' ''The Spoken Word Revolution: Slam, Hip-Hop, & the Poetry of a New Generation'', and ''The Spoken Word Revolution Redux''.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Coval, Kevin
Living people
Jewish American poets
Jewish poets
21st-century American poets
Poets from Chicago
Year of birth missing (living people)
21st-century American Jews