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
In African-American culture, there's often a family historian, someone who does the genealogy or keeps the family Bible. I became aware that… — Kevin Young American culture Copy Share Image
I think Barnum is at the center of American culture. He's helping to invent what we now think of as pop culture.… — Kevin Young American Copy Share Image
To me, poetry is spoken - not exclusively, but there's a mix of languages in it. That's what I liked about 'For… — Kevin Young About Copy Share Image
That sense of mystery, but also of revelation, is what I turn to poems for. They're able to embody experience. We need… — Kevin Young Experience Copy Share Image
In a long poem or a sequence of poems, you're trying to formalize your obsessions and give them a shape and a… — Kevin Young Connections Copy Share Image
We quickly erase hoaxes once exposed, excising the monstrous palimpsest, because as with any witch hunt or obvious fake, afterward we can't… — Kevin Young Explain Copy Share Image
A DJ draws a connection between two seemingly disparate things and says, 'Look, they are alike. You can dance to them.' — Kevin Young Connection Copy Share Image
Forget reparations - we need to rescue aspects of black culture abandoned even by black folks, whether it is the blues or… — Kevin Young Black culture Copy Share Image
Footnotes are for proving and showing where you've been. Also, they're for the curious - they can then go and find the… — Kevin Young Curious Copy Share Image
It took a while for anyone to want to publish 'To Repel Ghosts.' I thought people would want to publish a three-hundred-and-fifty-page… — Kevin Young About Copy Share Image
“holding tight / to their pocketbooks / at the pearly gates / just in case.” — Kevin Young Pearly gates Copy Share Image
“To waste this heart once more & have you here, not silent, only quiet, as before.” — Kevin Young Quiet Copy Share Image
Poems evolve. I don't feel like I choose them; they just come to me. — Kevin Young Change Copy Share Image
“what you must understand is that the herald & the horror are the same.” — Kevin Young Learning Copy Share Image
The first rule of influence is that there isn't any. The second rule of influence is that it is everywhere. — Kevin Young Everywhere Copy Share Image
I'm not a historian. I know historians. I've worked with them. They have a really powerful way of looking at the world,… — Kevin Young History Copy Share Image
The question of sort of music and history, I think, are so important to understanding the poem as an idea but also… — Kevin Young History Copy Share Image
People sometimes say hoaxes are about the blurry line between nonfiction and fiction. I just don't think it's a blurry line at… — Kevin Young Between Copy Share Image
“Letters I've never sent. This life we're only renting. Battered the world is - bartered - wander over it the stars finding… — Kevin Young Letters Copy Share Image
I think that I try really hard to think about how we deceive ourselves, and we let ourselves be deceived. — Kevin Young Deceive Copy Share Image
In many ways, I feel like the form carries so much of the weight in a poem, obviously. But I think we… — Kevin Young Feel Copy Share Image
“Like hot food I love you like warm bread & cold cuts, butter sammiches or, days later, after Thanksgiving when I want… — Kevin Young Food Copy Share Image
For me Louisiana was mostly family when I was there. We hardly left; there was no need to... We hardly left the… — Kevin Young Family Copy Share Image
The mid-eighteen-thirties marked the rise of eugenics and racialism, with phrenology emerging as just one of the many pseudosciences that sought to… — Kevin Young Difference Copy Share Image
It's hard to describe one's own alchemy that makes one into a writer, but I definitely think American language is so interesting,… — Kevin Young Alchemy Copy Share Image
Can you explore real issues as a fake character? Yes - it's called acting. Or fiction. But acting is not a method… — Kevin Young Acting Copy Share Image
When I'm in full-on writing mode and have the day, I try to get in my office around 10 A.M. and stop… — Kevin Young Day Copy Share Image
In the absence of an answer that is complicated and sort of maybe troubling, we sometimes settle for the easy answer. It's… — Kevin Young Believe Copy Share Image
I write about what hoaxers do, but I also want us to think about what believers do. Why do we want to… — Kevin Young Believe Copy Share Image
We had moved cross-country from upstate New York to Kansas in the heat wave of 1980, with two cars, no air-conditioning, and… — Kevin Young Dog Copy Share Image
I think music is poetry in the sense that I think the condition of poetry I'm going for has some qualities of… — Kevin Young I think Copy Share Image
I try to read as a reader and also read as a writer. I mean, they're not so different. — Kevin Young Books Copy Share Image
One of the most troubling things about the term 'fake news' is that it has become a force field against accusations you… — Kevin Young Fake Copy Share Image
Harper Lee's novel 'To Kill a Mockingbird' became iconic almost immediately after appearing in 1960: best-seller status; the Pulitzer Prize the next… — Kevin Young Academy award Copy Share Image
