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;
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; 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 of poetry, 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 and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was named a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2020. He lives in Washington, DC.
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