Kevin Young

Mash-ups can produce musical experiences that become more than the sum of their parts, but what happens when major labels don’t want you to hear them? Join EPL on Tuesday, February 26th when Freedom to Read Week becomes Freedom to Listen! This talk’s focus will be Danger Mouse’s notorious Grey Album—fusing together The Beatles’ “White Album” and Jay-Z’s Black Album—as well as copyright issues and mash-up culture as a whole.

Please note that this presentation will feature explicit lyrics that might not be suitable for everyone. (DiegoIbarra)… (more)

Kevin Young reads from The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing.; Natasha Trethewey reads from The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing.

If you love poetry, it just doesn't get any better than this! We'll be hosting not just a pair of prize-winning Emory University poets but two of the most outstanding writers of poetry in the United States. We all share life’s passages, from love to grief, and during them often turn to poetry to express the inexpressible. But while anthologies of love poetry abound, Kevin Young’s eagerly anticipated new volume of poetry, a beautiful and thoughtful new collection titled The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing, is the very first anthology of its kind, delivering 150 devastatingly beautiful contemporary elegies that embrace the pain, heartbreak, and healing stages of mourning. Selected and introduced by Young, the poems are artfully arranged to correspond with the grieving process: starting with Reckoning, moving through Remembrance and Rituals, then ending with Recovery and, finally, Redemption. And with contributions from men, women, and a full range of races and faiths, the breadth of human experience is captured. Whether read aloud at a funeral service or privately for comfort, these poems prove a worthy companion to the necessary, and often messy, process of grieving. A singularly thoughtful gift for those coping with grief, as well as a vital resource for the loved ones, clergy, and hospice workers who guide us through the process of letting go, The Art of Losing is an inspirational volume and will be an essential source of comfort and beauty. With poems by Elizabeth Alexander, Simon Armitage, John Ashbery, W. H . Auden, Coleman Barks, John Berryman, Elizabeth Bishop, Lucille Clifton, Billy Collins, e.e. cummings, Emily Dickinson, Rita Dove, Robert Frost, Louise Glück, Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, Jane Kenyon, Galway Kinnell, Kenneth Koch, Philip Larkin, D.H. Lawrence, Li-Young Lee, Philip Levine, Marianne Moore, Les Murray, Frank O’Hara, Sharon Olds, Mary Oliver, Robert Pinsky, Adrienne Rich, Theodore Roethke, Anne Sexton, Dylan Thomas, Natasha Trethewey, Derek Walcott and James Wright, among others. There are also a number of younger poets represented including Natasha Trethewey, who is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her book, Native Guard . Her honors include the Bunting Fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. She is Professor of English at Emory University where she holds the Phillis Wheatley Distinguished Chair in Poetry. Kevin Young is a National Book Award finalist, one of America's most acclaimed young poets, and a popular reader. In addition to his distinguished work as an editor, Young is the author of several notable books of poetry including For the Confederate Dead, Jelly Roll, To Repel Ghosts, Dear Darkness and Black Maria. He is currently in residence at Emory University, where he serves as the Atticus Haygood Professor of English and Creative Writing. Our good friends at A Capella Books will have copies of books by Trethewey and Young, including the new anthology, available at the library for purchase and signing. Doors for this event will open at 6:30 p.m. If you cannot attend the reading, but would like a signed copy of The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing, you may reserve it at http://www.acappellabooks.com/ev_young.asp. (jasbro)… (more)