When I was ten and in fifth grade, I read all of 'Robinson Crusoe' in one weekend. — Kevin Young Books Copy Share Image
Great music - say jazz - has that inventive, improvisational quality that tells us something about life. — Kevin Young Great Copy Share Image
Hip-hop at its zenith insists on thinking and dancing simultaneously. In fact, it sees them as synonymous. — Kevin Young Dancing Copy Share Image
I rather think that archives exist to keep things safe - but not secret. — Kevin Young Archives Copy Share Image
I think poems return us to that place of mud and dirt and earth, sun and rain. — Kevin Young Dirt Copy Share Image
It's a black Southern belief that blue glass keeps out bad spirits. — Kevin Young Bad Copy Share Image
“I have come to know sorrow's not noun but verb, something that, unlike living, by doing right you do less of.” — Kevin Young Doing right Copy Share Image
I was a professor for 20 years, 12 of those at Emory University. — Kevin Young Professor Copy Share Image
We've learned quickly that the Web is far more pseudonymous than anonymous: online, our names have simply been changed to a number,… — Kevin Young Anonymous Copy Share Image
Even Toni Morrison claiming Bill Clinton as 'black' could not prepare us for the election of America's first undeniably black president, Barack… — Kevin Young America Copy Share Image
The willed recovery of what's been lost - often forcibly, I suppose - is what keeps me going. It is this reason… — Kevin Young Curator Copy Share Image
For the black author, and even the ex-slave narrator, creativity has often lain with the lie - forging an identity, 'making' one,… — Kevin Young Black Copy Share Image
“I now know pain is part of any journey- that this is the opposite of grief, but grief the only way I… — Kevin Young Death Copy Share Image
The hoax is the very absence of truth, which usually means art is absent, too - hoaxes regularly substitute claims of reality… — Kevin Young Art Copy Share Image
What a poem can do is provide you this intimate eye that, for the length of a poem and hopefully a little… — Kevin Young Eye Copy Share Image
I do think there's a certain savviness to be able to recognize the way people want a good story, and I think… — Kevin Young Good Copy Share Image
Race is the true protagonist of the American novel. Our most popular classic fictions have known this, from 'Moby Dick' to 'Beloved;'… — Kevin Young American Copy Share Image
“Deep Song Belief is what buries us—that & the belief in belief— No longer do I trust liltlessness —leeward is the world's… — Kevin Young Belief Copy Share Image
For 'The Grey Album,' I'd been thinking about the good side of lying - lying as a kind of improvisatory act in… — Kevin Young Black culture Copy Share Image
There's something about the kind of time travel that a poem can provide. It can take you to somewhere else - a… — Kevin Young Cinema Copy Share Image
While claiming advocacy, what hoaxers really exhibit is self-interest. Often, this is because there is only the self to support their false… — Kevin Young Advocacy Copy Share Image
A poem can provide testimony. A poem can provide solace. It can provide a connection. — Kevin Young Connection Copy Share Image
I remember in the '80s, people would literally have arguments over the best guitarist. — Kevin Young Best Copy Share Image
There is, of course, no larger mass hysteria in American history than the epidemic of racism. — Kevin Young American Copy Share Image
I didn't technically grow up in the South, but both my parents were from there. — Kevin Young Both Copy Share Image
Certainly, there is, in our culture, this notion of, you know, you can become anything. You can change. — Kevin Young Anything Copy Share Image
Poets often are dealing with history and are thinking about the way history moves across us, and we move in it. — Kevin Young History Copy Share Image
“Daylight Savings" Like the money the light doesn't go as far these days” — Kevin Young Daylight savings Copy Share Image
There's always been really interesting, diverse black voices talking and arguing and counterpointing. — Kevin Young Always Copy Share Image
I try to have a lot of influences, which is to say not to have one specific influence too strongly; that can… — Kevin Young End Copy Share Image
Here are the facts: my folks grew up so poor that, in the words of Redd Foxx, there were twenty o's between… — Kevin Young Between Copy Share Image
Rereading 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' I was struck by what I had forgotten of the book: in a manner of pages, we… — Kevin Young Book Copy Share Image
At our peril, we ignore the fact that black vernacular, like the blues, both has a form and performs... For just as… — Kevin Young American Copy Share Image
