Young, poetry editor ofThe New Yorker, has been publishing collections for two decades.
The effect is a book that reflects Youngs creative evolution, fusing the personal with the historical.
Read on below, and purchase your copy ofBrownhere.
Credit: Melanie Dunea; Random House
Brown of Brown v. Board [was at].
I was also interested in the intersection of the public and the private.
The ways that these bigger forces of history get played out in individuals.
Theyre coming-of-age poems, I realized.
Langston Hughes was in Topeka years later …
There was this kind of connection that I realized later, to poets and black artists in particular.
Whats the attraction to looking toward the past?I hadnt really thought about them together in some sense.
I was working on them around the same time.
They seem intertwined in some way, but they were also a relief from each other.
Its not clear if the person moves north or west or midwest.
The Great Migration underlays some of that.
I always felt connected to that tradition of migration and exile.It was a very personal connection.
In poetry, I think historyhappens its part of what I turn to to understand.
But its what we all turn to, or should.
It might be good to be aware of them.
I dont think I was so conscious of that when I was writing.
It was really important to me, seeing him there and feeling connected to him.
I wanted to write about that.
That sense of mystery, but also of revelation, is what I turn to poems for.
Theyre able to embody experience.
We need more and more of that.
Im not saying I dont like those forms, but poetry provides a really different attachment.
Theres something about the kind of time travel that a poem can provide.
Youre that person, seeing with that persons eyes.
I think thats really tremendous.
Even things like cinema or more traditional history cant quite do that.
Youve been publishing collections for decades.
It was really the story of two childhoods.
You cant help but think about that as well.
