Penguin Random House Higher Education
Elementary Secondary Higher Ed

Higher Education


Catalogs

News

Desk/Exam
(0)
Wish List
(0)
Wish List
  • Higher Education

    • Business & Economics
        • Business & Economics
        • Accounting
        • Business
        • Economics
        • Finance
        • Management
        • Management Information Services
        • Marketing

        • Browse All Disciplines & Courses in Business & Economics
    • Humanities & Social Sciences
        • Humanities & Social Sciences
        • Anthropology
        • Art
        • Communication
        • Education
        • English
        • Film Studies
        • History
        • Interdisciplinary Studies
        • Music
        •  
        • Performing Arts
        • Philosophy
        • Political Science
        • Psychology
        • Religion
        • Social Work
        • Sociology
        • Student Success and Career Development
        • World Languages

        • Browse All Disciplines & Courses in Humanities & Social Sciences
    • Professional Studies
        • Professional Studies
        • Architecture
        • Criminal Justice
        • Culinary, Hospitality, Travel , and Tourism
        • Healthcare Professions
        • Legal and Paralegal Studies
        • Military Science

        • Browse All Disciplines & Courses in Professional Studies
    • Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics
        • Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics
        • Biology
        • Chemistry
        • Computer Science
        • Computers & Information Systems
        • Engineering
        • Environmental Science
        •  
        • Geography
        • Geology
        • Health and Kinesiology
        • Mathematics
        • Nutrition
        • Physics and Astronomy

        • Browse All Disciplines & Courses in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics
    • Catalogs
    • News
    • Desk/Exam
    • Other Penguin Random House Education Sites
    • Elementary Education
    • Secondary Education
Download high-resolution image Listen to a clip

Stones

Poems

Author Kevin Young
Listen to a clip
Ebook
$14.99 US
Knopf
On sale Sep 28, 2021 | 128 Pages | 978-1-5247-3257-8
Add to cart Add to list Exam Copies
See Additional Formats
  • English > Comparative Literature: American > African American Poetry
  • English > Literature > American Literature – Poetry
  • Interdisciplinary Studies > Race and Ethnic Studies > African American Literature
  • About
  • Excerpt
  • Author
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.
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.
© Maciek Jasik

KEVIN YOUNG is the Andrew W. Mellon Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. He previously served as the director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Young is the author of fourteen books of poetry and prose, including Brown; Blue Laws: Selected & Uncollected Poems 1995-2015, long-listed for the National Book Award; Book of Hours, winner of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets; 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, long-listed 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. The poetry editor of The New Yorker, Young is the editor of nine other volumes, most recently the acclaimed anthology African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was named a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2020.

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

© Maciek Jasik

KEVIN YOUNG is the Andrew W. Mellon Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. He previously served as the director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Young is the author of fourteen books of poetry and prose, including Brown; Blue Laws: Selected & Uncollected Poems 1995-2015, long-listed for the National Book Award; Book of Hours, winner of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets; 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, long-listed 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. The poetry editor of The New Yorker, Young is the editor of nine other volumes, most recently the acclaimed anthology African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was named a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2020.

View titles by Kevin Young

Additional formats

  • Stones
    Stones
    Poems
    Kevin Young
    978-0-593-55492-0
    $7.50 US
    Audiobook Download
    Random House Audio
    Sep 28, 2021
  • Stones
    Stones
    Poems
    Kevin Young
    978-1-5247-3256-1
    $27.00 US
    Hardcover
    Knopf
    Sep 28, 2021
  • Stones
    Stones
    Poems
    Kevin Young
    978-0-593-55492-0
    $7.50 US
    Audiobook Download
    Random House Audio
    Sep 28, 2021
  • Stones
    Stones
    Poems
    Kevin Young
    978-1-5247-3256-1
    $27.00 US
    Hardcover
    Knopf
    Sep 28, 2021

Other Books by this Author

  • Emile and the Field
    Emile and the Field
    Kevin Young, Chioma Ebinama
    978-1-9848-5042-3
    $17.99 US
    Hardcover
    Make Me a World
    Mar 15, 2022
  • Brown
    Brown
    Poems
    Kevin Young
    978-1-5247-1114-6
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Knopf
    Mar 03, 2020
  • Blue Laws
    Blue Laws
    Selected and Uncollected Poems, 1995-2015
    Kevin Young
    978-0-345-80741-0
    $25.00 US
    Paperback
    Knopf
    Sep 05, 2017
  • Book of Hours
    Book of Hours
    Poems
    Kevin Young
    978-0-375-71188-6
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Knopf
    Oct 13, 2015
  • Ardency
    Ardency
    A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels
    Kevin Young
    978-0-375-71161-9
    $19.95 US
    Paperback
    Knopf
    Sep 18, 2012
  • Dear Darkness
    Dear Darkness
    Poems
    Kevin Young
    978-0-307-26442-8
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Knopf
    Jul 06, 2010
  • For the Confederate Dead
    For the Confederate Dead
    Kevin Young
    978-0-375-71141-1
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Knopf
    Sep 09, 2008
  • Black Maria
    Black Maria
    Kevin Young
    978-0-375-71050-6
    $20.00 US
    Paperback
    Knopf
    Mar 20, 2007
  • To Repel Ghosts
    To Repel Ghosts
    The Remix
    Kevin Young
    978-0-375-71023-0
    $20.00 US
    Paperback
    Knopf
    Sep 27, 2005
  • Jelly Roll
    Jelly Roll
    A Blues
    Kevin Young
    978-0-375-70989-0
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Knopf
    Feb 01, 2005
  • Emile and the Field
    Emile and the Field
    Kevin Young, Chioma Ebinama
    978-1-9848-5042-3
    $17.99 US
    Hardcover
    Make Me a World
    Mar 15, 2022
  • Brown
    Brown
    Poems
    Kevin Young
    978-1-5247-1114-6
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Knopf
    Mar 03, 2020
  • Blue Laws
    Blue Laws
    Selected and Uncollected Poems, 1995-2015
    Kevin Young
    978-0-345-80741-0
    $25.00 US
    Paperback
    Knopf
    Sep 05, 2017
  • Book of Hours
    Book of Hours
    Poems
    Kevin Young
    978-0-375-71188-6
    $16.95 US
    Paperback
    Knopf
    Oct 13, 2015
  • Ardency
    Ardency
    A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels
    Kevin Young
    978-0-375-71161-9
    $19.95 US
    Paperback
    Knopf
    Sep 18, 2012
  • Dear Darkness
    Dear Darkness
    Poems
    Kevin Young
    978-0-307-26442-8
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Knopf
    Jul 06, 2010
  • For the Confederate Dead
    For the Confederate Dead
    Kevin Young
    978-0-375-71141-1
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Knopf
    Sep 09, 2008
  • Black Maria
    Black Maria
    Kevin Young
    978-0-375-71050-6
    $20.00 US
    Paperback
    Knopf
    Mar 20, 2007
  • To Repel Ghosts
    To Repel Ghosts
    The Remix
    Kevin Young
    978-0-375-71023-0
    $20.00 US
    Paperback
    Knopf
    Sep 27, 2005
  • Jelly Roll
    Jelly Roll
    A Blues
    Kevin Young
    978-0-375-70989-0
    $18.00 US
    Paperback
    Knopf
    Feb 01, 2005
 Keep in touch!
Sign up for news from Penguin Random House Higher Education.
Subscribe
Connect with Us!

Get the latest news on all things Higher Education. Learn about our books, authors, teacher events, and more!

Friend us on Facebook!

Follow us on Twitter!

Subscribe on YouTube!

Our mission is to foster a universal passion for reading by partnering with authors to help create stories and communicate ideas that inform, entertain, and inspire.

Privacy Policy   |   Terms of Use

© 2022 Penguin Random House

About Higher Education

  • About Us
  • Digital Solutions
  • FAQs
  • Conferences
  • Submit a desk/exam request
  • Contact your Higher Education Representative
  • Browse & subscribe to our newsletters

Penguin Random House Education

  • Elementary
  • Secondary
  • Higher Ed
  • Common Reads

Penguin Random House

  • penguinrandomhouse.com
  • global.penguinrandomhouse.com
  • Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau

About Higher Education

  • About Us
  • Digital Solutions
  • FAQs
  • Conferences

Penguin Random House Education

  • Elementary
  • Secondary
  • Higher Ed
  • Common Reads
  • Submit a desk/exam request
  • Contact your Higher Education Representative
  • Browse & subscribe to our newsletters

Penguin Random House

  • penguinrandomhouse.com
  • global.penguinrandomhouse.com
  • Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau

Privacy Policy   |   Terms of Use

© 2022 Penguin Random House
Back to Top