Kevin Young is the author of twelve books of poetry and prose, including Blue Laws: Selected & Uncollected Poems 1995-2015 (2016), longlisted for the National Book Award; Book of Hours (2014), a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and winner of the Lenore Marshall Prize for Poetry from the Academy of American Poets; Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels (2011), winner of an American Book Award; and Dear Darkness (2008). His collection Jelly Roll: a blues (2003) was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He is is the Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and poetry editor of The New Yorker.