If asked to list the greatest innovators of modern American poetry, few
of us would think to include Jay-Z or Eminem in their number. And yet
hip hop is the source of some of the most exciting developments in verse
today. The media uproar in response to its controversial lyrical content
has obscured hip hop's revolution of poetic craft and experience: Only
in rap music can the beat of a song render poetic meter audible,
allowing an MC's wordplay to move a club-full of eager listeners.
Examining rap history's most memorable lyricists and their inimitable
techniques, literary scholar Adam Bradley argues that we must understand
rap as poetry or miss the vanguard of poetry today. Book of Rhymes
explores America's least understood poets, unpacking their surprisingly
complex craft, and according rap poetry the respect it deserves.