Hereafter By Kevin Young (Grades 7-9)

Kevin Young is the author of many books of poetry, including Night Watch (2025), Stones (2021), a finalist for the T.S. Eliot Prize; Brown (2018); Blue Laws: Selected & Uncollected Poems 1995–2015; and Book of Hours (2014), winner of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. Three of Young’s books form what he calls “an American trilogy”: To Repel Ghosts (2001), which explores the paintings of Jean-Michel Basquiat; Jelly Roll (2003), a collection of blues poems; and Black Maria (2005), a film noir. His first book of poetry, Most Way Home (1995), was selected for the National Poetry Series by Lucille Clifton, who described the collection as re-creating “an inner history which is compelling and authentic and American.” Young’s other collections of poetry include Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels (2011), winner of the Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award; Dear Darkness (2008); and For the Confederate Dead (2007), winner of the Quill Award in Poetry and the Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Excellence.