Stones

Description

The best collection yet from an important and much celebrated US poet - the poetry editor of the New Yorker and director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture - and the first of his books to be published in the UK. A book of loss, looking back, and what binds us to life, by a towering poetic talent, 'one of the poetry stars of his generation' (Los Angeles Times). '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. 'Like heat he seeks them, / my son, thirsting / to learn those / he don't know / are his dead.' 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. 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 director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture and poetry editor of the New Yorker. He was previously the director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. He is the author of a number of books of poetry and prose, including Jelly Roll- A Blues, a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry; Bunk, a New York Times Notable Book, longlisted for the National Book Award and named on many 'best of' lists for 2017; and The Grey Album, winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize and the PEN Open Book Award, a New York Times Notable Book, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism. He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016.

One of the most important poets of his generation... There appears to be no format in which Young does not shine. * Washington Post * Kevin Young perfectly illustrates poetry's enduring vitality. * Entertainment Weekly * Keeping up with him is like trying to keep up with Bob Dylan or Prince in their primes. Even the bootlegs have bootlegs. -- Dwight Garner * New York Times * One of the poetry stars of his generation. * Los Angeles Times *