Summary

Chapter 3 is titled “Bomb-Ass Poetry.” The author begins with a summary of the film “Love Jones,” which he says shaped his perceptions of romance and relationships more than anything else. In the film, he says, the central character (a young black man) publicly recited a love poem to a woman he had just met, pursued her, and developed a relationship with her. The author comments, however, that if that woman had behaved like any sort of realistic woman, she would have rejected Darius’s advances and left him on his own. The fact that Darius succeeded, however, made him (the author) think that he would have success with women by doing the same thing – that is, making himself into a poet. He was, he adds, particularly interested in having sexual success with the beautiful Tracey, who seemed to have decided that their relationship...