Stones - by Kevin Young (Paperback)

About the Book

"A book of elegy, loss, and what binds us to life, by a towering poetic talent. "We sleep long, / if not sound," 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 Louisiana summer's fireflies 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 comprises 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"--

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

A Library Journal top ten poetry title of 2021
A Financial Times best poetry book of 2021
One of Washington Post critic Ron Charles's twelve favorite poetry collections of 2021
A New York Times "Editor's Choice" selection
One of TIME's "34 most anticipated books to read this fall"
One of Atlanta Journal-Constitution's "10 must-read Southern books this fall"
One of Thrillist's "24 Books We Can't Wait to Read This Fall"

"An exceptionally beautiful collection, full of retrospection, longing, and grief ambered into verse." --Ron Charles, The Washington Post

"In Stones, Young mines his familial history and calls out moments of sorrow and joy, from musings on his grandmother Mama Annie to poems that consider the generations of people that have lived in the American South. The result is a blistering look at love, loss and everything in between." --TIME

"Stones combines brevity and sharp line breaks. . . . A book of language at its limits." --The Guardian

"Joy and sorrow are inseparable in this volume of reminiscence rooted in the American South. . . . [The] poet crafts exquisite portraits of the people he loves and the places he calls home."
--Oprah Quarterly

"Young transforms memories, grief into beauty . . . We are lucky he allows us to travel with him into his past and glance over his shoulder." --Jeremy Redmon, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Distilled meditations on the deep resonance of family and home . . . Evocations of church services, rain, sun, and the music of the dark entwine nature and human longing . . . For Young, words are stones; poems are cairns." --Donna Seaman, Booklist

"With superbly crafted poems that engage the past and the present, Young delivers another ambitious collection across seven lyrically powerful sections. . . . These elegant, measured poems offer insight into the troubled moment through an exhumation of the past, while giving the reader plenty of depth and beauty to carry into the future." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

About the Author

Kevin Young is the author of fifteen books of poetry and prose, including Stones, shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize; Blue Laws: Selected & Uncollected Poems 1995-2015, longlisted for the National Book Award; Book of Hours, winner of the Lenore Marshall 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, 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. 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, the Society of American Historians, and was named a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2020. He lives and works in Washington, D.C.