Kevin Young, an award-winning poet, former Emory professor and Rose Library curator, and poetry editor of The New Yorker, returns to Emory University to share his work at two events in March.
Young will be the special guest poet at the 25th anniversary 12th Night Revel, the annual fundraiser for the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, which will take place Friday, March 21, 2025, from 6-10 p.m. in the Lullwater Ballroom at the Emory Conference Center Hotel. Individual and group tickets can be purchased on the 12th Night Revel webpage. The event is open to the public, and newcomers are welcome to join the festivities, which includes dinner, poetry readings from attendees, and the opportunity to mingle with Young and fellow guests.
Poet Kevin Young will return to Emory for the Rose Library’s 12th Night annual fundraiser March 21 and a public reading on March 22. Photo: Maciek Jasik.
On Saturday, March 22, Young will give a reading at 1 p.m. at Glenn Memorial United Methodist Church on the university campus. Young’s books will be for sale at the reading, with a signing immediately following the event. The reading is open to the public at no charge, but seating is limited and attendees are urged to register in advance. The event is part of the annual Raymond Danowski Poetry Library Reading Series, founded by the Rose Library.
“The 12th Night Revel is a celebration of one of the Rose Library’s core values: that poetry and art are living and vital, not only as artifacts of human expression but as essential components of how humanity is nurtured and sustained,” says Elizabeth Ott, director of the Rose Library.
Young was the curator of literary collections and the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library at the Rose Library and a professor of English and creative writing at Emory University from 2005-2016. The Danowski library consists of 85,000 volumes of rare and first editions of modern and contemporary poetry and is one of the largest and most significant collections of verse in the world.
“Kevin Young has a poetic voice for the ages – that is, all ages,” says Rosemary M. Magee, director emerita of the Rose Library and chief reveler for this year’s 12th Night Revel. “He speaks to us wherever we may be in life, with subjects ranging from love poems to music to food to grief, and the full spectrum of emotions. While his creative journey has taken him far and wide, we’re always thrilled to welcome him back to the Rose Library, a place where he has given so much of himself.”
Young is the author of 16 books of poetry and prose, including “Stones” (2021), shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize; “Blue Laws: Selected & Uncollected Poems 1995-2015” (2016), longlisted for the National Book Award; and “Book of Hours” (2014), a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and winner of the Lenore Marshall Prize for Poetry. His next book of poetry will be “Night Watch” (Sept. 2, 2025).
His children’s book “Emile and the Field” (RHCB/Make Me a World, 2022) was illustrated by Chioma Ebinama and was one of the New York Times’ Best Children’s Books of 2022.
He has also written two nonfiction books: “Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News” (2017), which won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Nonfiction and was named a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and as a New York Times Book Review “Editors’ Choice” selection; and “The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness” (2012), which won the PEN Open Book Award and was a finalist for the 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism.
Young is the editor of 10 other volumes, including “The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton, 1965- 2010” (2012), “The Hungry Ear: Poems of Food and Drink” (2012), and the Library of America anthology “African American Poetry 1770–2020: 250 Years of Struggle & Song” (2020). Most recently he was the editor for “A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker: 1925-2025” (Knopf, February 4, 2025).
As members of the public and the Emory community attend one or both of Young’s readings, they will come away with verses, some witty and others thought-provoking, that will stay with them, Magee says.
“The marvel of Kevin’s poetry – and, in fact, all his writings and professional endeavors – is that we are called upon to seek and find our own identity,” Magee says. “His poetry reading is certain to be an invitation to ask provocative questions of ourselves and others about history, race, and our own tumultuous times. We will discover what he refers to as ‘the unexpected.’ Everyone who comes will be both satisfied and surprised.”
Kevin Young’s public reading at Emory is sponsored by the Hightower Fund, Emory Libraries and the Rose Library, Emory’s Department of English and the Creative Writing Program, Emory Arts, Glenn Memorial United Methodist Church, and the Decatur Book Festival.
—Maureen McGavin, Emory Libraries senior writer
Related links
Poetry readings on Emory Libraries YouTube playlist
Poet Major Jackson ‘razzle-dazzles’ Emory audiences (2024)