It’s Thoughtful Thursday! Today we are celebrating one of our favorite poets, Kevin Young. In case you hadn’t heard, Kevin Young has just been named as the new director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. He will be leaving his position as the head of the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture, a division of the New York Public Library, a position he has held for four years. He also serves as poetry editor at The New Yorker magazine, and will continue in that role in his new position.
Congrats to Kevin, and we can’t wait to see what he does at the National Museum of African American History and Culture! In the meantime, here are some of our favorite poems from Kevin. Share them with your children and enjoy.
Eddie Priest’s Barbershop & Notary
Closed Mondays
is music is men
off early from work is waiting
for the chance at the chair
while the eagle claws holes
in your pockets keeping
time by the turning
of rusty fans steel flowers with
cold breezes is having nothing
better to do than guess at the years
of hair matted beneath the soiled caps
of drunks the pain of running
a fisted comb through stubborn
knots is the dark dirty low
down blues the tender heads
of sons fresh from cornrows all
wonder at losing half their height
is a mother gathering hair for good
luck for a soft wig is the round
difficulty of ears the peach
faced boys asking Eddie
to cut in parts and arrows
wanting to have their names read
for just a few days and among thin
jazz is the quick brush of a done
head the black flood around
your feet grandfathers
stopping their games of ivory
dominoes just before they reach the bone
yard is winking widowers announcing
cut it clean off I’m through courting
and hair only gets in the way is the final
spin of the chair a reflection of
a reflection that sting of wintergreen
tonic on the neck of a sleeping snow
haired man when you realize it is
your turn you are next
Kevin Young
Reward
RUN AWAY from this sub-
scriber for the second time
are TWO NEGROES, viz. SMART,
an outlandish dark fellow
with his country marks
on his temples and bearing
the remarkable brand of my
name on his left breast, last
seen wearing an old ragged
negro cloth shirt and breeches
made of fearnought; also DIDO,
a likely young wench of a yellow
cast, born in cherrytime in this
parish, wearing a mixed coloured
coat with a bundle of clothes,
mostly blue, under her one good
arm. Both speak tolerable plain
English and may insist on being
called Cuffee and Khasa respect-
ively. Whoever shall deliver
the said goods to the gaoler
in Baton Rouge, or to the Sugar
House in the parish, shall receive
all reasonable charges plus
a genteel reward besides what
the law allows. In the mean
time all persons are strictly
forbid harbouring them, on pain
of being prosecuted to the utmost
rigour of the law. Ten guineas
will be paid to anyone who can
give intelligence of their being
harboured, employed, or enter-
tained by a white person upon
his sentence; five on conviction
of a black. All Masters of vessels
are warned against carrying them
out of state, as they may claim
to be free. If any of the above
Negroes return of their own
accord, they may still be for-
given by
ELIZABETH YOUNG.
Kevin Young
Hive
The honey bees’ exile
is almost complete.
You can carry
them from hive
to hive, the child thought
& that is what
he tried, walking
with them thronging
between his pressed palms.
Let him be right.
Let the gods look away
as always. Let this boy
who carries the entire
actual, whirring
world in his calm
unwashed hands,
barely walking, bear
us all there
buzzing, unstung.
Kevin Young
