KEVIN YOUNG
Monday, October 13 at 7:30 p.m.

We are pleased to present this first-ever Elliott Bay reading by one of the most accomplished poets at work today, Kevin Young. Author of six books of poetry, and the editor of collections and anthologies ranging from John Berryman: Selected Poems to Giant Steps: The New Generation of African American Writers, he is here tonight with his newest book of poems, Dear Darkness (Knopf). "Perhaps the most prominent African-American poet of his generation, the prolific Young begins his sixth book, which gathers sets of independent short poems—some very funny, some heartbreaking, almost all in deftly enjambed, uncommonly various lines—with evocations of childhood, at once cozy and surrounded by half-secret threats ... For all the humor and autobiography in this big book, Young digs deepest and sounds most powerful when he returns to the unlucky, unlovely, generalized personae of blues, who becomes in his hands at once a source of energy and a means for elegy." – Publishers Weekly.

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