For my book review I decided to read Saul Williams’ The Dead Emcee Scrolls – The Lost Teachings of Hip-Hop. In this book Williams is working in a very modern tradition and I personally have not seen any other work done in the past that resembles his work in this book. His work is responding to how hip-hop has been a very significant influence on many individuals and how he personally was able to combine his love of music and writing together to create a mix of the two in a very unique kind of hip-hop poetry. Williams’ book is put together as a collection of disparate poems, but interestingly enough, his work could probably be read as one poem as well and still flow nicely. I think he has this effect on his readers because of the almost lyrical verse he writes as if it was apart of a hip-hop song. The conversation Saul Williams has with his reader is one that is based upon raw truth. He does a very good job at speaking to his audience in a way that they can feel the way he feels through his writing. The poems Williams writes tend to be a combination of unrhymed free verse as well as rhymed verse. The poems also appear to be made up of both prose and sestinas, and they vary from being fairly long to short. Williams also plays with the use of his line as well. His lines vary in length as well as in being end-stopped and enjambed, but he uses the enjambment very rarely because it definitely messes with his lyrical sound that he’s going for in creating a song-like vibe when reading his poems. Saul Williams also really uses a unique kind of language slang. It’s very new age and he also uses very unique acronyms for words that may be viewed as offensive, such as “NGH WHT” for “Nigga What”. Some of the offensive language really pays tribute to the influence of hip-hop in his work and by putting them in capitalized acronyms it not only makes it stand out more, but it also makes the statement more powerful. This also plays a role in the tone of Williams’ book. His poems tend to be full of tension, which changes throughout his pieces. The tension he introduces is very effective in making the reader feel connected to the poem as well. He ends his book with a series of journal entries and they do tend to give the reader a sense of resolution, but also open ended in a way that leaves the reader feeling empowered and inspired. Features in this book that a young writer might want to emulate is the honestly that Saul Williams brings to this poems. A very great ability he has, is being able to present very relatable information through his work to his reader, while gaining the trust and interest of the reader as well. On the other hand, a young writer should be careful writing the way in which Saul Williams does because if you’re not completely honest and open with your work, the reader will know and the feelings you evoke from your audience won’t be as powerful. Some questions I would really like to ask Saul Williams is too further explore his inspirations of his writing beyond hip-hop music as well as what he wanted to get out of writing when he completed this book? All and all, this book was very good and I would definitely recommend reading his work.