Blue Laws: Selected and Uncollected Poems, 1995-2015

Blue Laws: Selected and Uncollected Poems, 1995-2015

Longlisted for the National Book Award

A rich and lively gathering of highlights from the first twenty years of an extraordinary career, interspersed with â€œB sidesâ€ and â€œbonus tracksâ€ from this prolific and widely acclaimed poet.

Blue Laws gathers poems written over the past two decades, drawing from all nine of Kevin Youngâ€™s previously published books of poetry and including a number of uncollected, often unpublished, poems. From his stunning lyric debut (Most Way Home, 1995) and the amazing â€œdouble albumâ€ life of Jean-Michel Basquiat (2001, â€œremixedâ€ for Knopf in 2005), through his brokenhearted Jelly Roll: A Blues (2003) and his recent forays into adult grief and the joys of birth in Dear Darkness (2008) and Book of Hours (2014), this collection provides a grand tour of a poet whose personal poems and political poems are equally riveting. Together with wonderful outtakes and previously unseen blues, the profoundly felt poems here of family, Southern food, and loss are of a piece with the depth of personal sensibility and humanity found in his Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels or bold sequences such as â€œThe Ballad of Jim Crowâ€ and a new â€œHomage to Phillis Wheatley.â€

From the Hardcover edition.
Country USA
Manufacturer Knopf
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2016-02-02
Format Kindle eBook

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