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Stones

Poems

Author Kevin Young
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Paperback
$18.00 US
Knopf
On sale Apr 02, 2024 | 128 Pages | 9781524711153
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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

"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.
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Where the train once rained
          through town
like a river, where the water

rose in early summer
          & froze come winter—
where the moon

of the outhouse shone
          its crescent welcome,
where the heavens opened

& the sun wouldn’t quit—
          past the gully or gulch
or holler or ditch

I was born.
          Or, torn—
Dragged myself

atop this mountain
          fueled by flour, butter-
milk, grease fires.

Where I’m from
          women speak
in burnt tongues

& someone’s daddy dug
          a latrine so deep
up from the dark

dank bottom springs a tree.
Copyright © 2021 by Kevin Young. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
© Melanie Dunea
KEVIN YOUNG is the author of sixteen books of poetry and prose, including his most recent, Night Watch. He is the poetry editor of The New Yorker, where he hosts the Poetry Podcast, and the editor of eleven volumes, including A Century of Poetry in the New Yorker, 1925-2025 and the acclaimed anthology African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song. He currently serves as the Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. View titles by Kevin Young

About

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

"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.

Excerpt

Resume

Where the train once rained
          through town
like a river, where the water

rose in early summer
          & froze come winter—
where the moon

of the outhouse shone
          its crescent welcome,
where the heavens opened

& the sun wouldn’t quit—
          past the gully or gulch
or holler or ditch

I was born.
          Or, torn—
Dragged myself

atop this mountain
          fueled by flour, butter-
milk, grease fires.

Where I’m from
          women speak
in burnt tongues

& someone’s daddy dug
          a latrine so deep
up from the dark

dank bottom springs a tree.
Copyright © 2021 by Kevin Young. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Author

© Melanie Dunea
KEVIN YOUNG is the author of sixteen books of poetry and prose, including his most recent, Night Watch. He is the poetry editor of The New Yorker, where he hosts the Poetry Podcast, and the editor of eleven volumes, including A Century of Poetry in the New Yorker, 1925-2025 and the acclaimed anthology African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song. He currently serves as the Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. View titles by Kevin Young

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