![]() ![]() ![]() Stones becomes an ode to Young’s home places and his dear departed, and to what of them-of us-poetry can save. Kevin Young is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Dear Darkness, named one of the Best Books of 2008 by National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, and winner of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Award in poetry. Whether it’s the fireflies of a Louisiana summer caught in a mason jar (doomed by their collection), or his grandmother, Mama Annie, who latches the screen door when someone steps out for just a moment, all that makes up our flickering precarious joy, all that we want to protect, is lifted into the light in this moving book. “Like heat he seeks them, / my son, thirsting / to learn those / he don’t know / are his dead.” “We sleep long, / if not sound,” Kevin Young writes early on in this exquisite gathering of poems, “Till the end/ we sing / into the wind.” In scenes and settings that circle family and the generations in the American South–one poem, “Kith,” exploring that strange bedfellow of “kin”–the speaker and his young son wander among the stones of their ancestors. Young is the author of sixteen books of poetry and prose, including Stones, which was short-listed for the T. A book of loss, looking back, and what binds us to life, by a towering poetic talent, called “one of the poetry stars of his generation” ( Los Angeles Times). September 28, 20215:08 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition Listen 6:59 6-Minute Listen Playlist Download Embed Transcript NPR's Rachel Martin speaks with Kevin Young about his latest poetry. ![]()
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