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Kevin Young Responds



	

			
Kevin Young Responds
		




	

					
	
					by  Kevin  Young 			





	
	

				
Who knows why poets do what they do? We’re strange creatures, even to ourselves. But I’ve used ampersands for some time—not always, but often. I suppose the reason in part has to do with speech and its everyday abbreviations and linkages—not to mention I think ampersands look good. Like Emily Dickinson’s dashes—which make an appearance in my poem, alongside Dickinson herself—ampersands are both written and sonic. With any luck, they may even make the word “and” mean something again.
			


	

		Originally Published: December 1, 2009	


	
		
		

	
		

			
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This prose originally appeared in the December 2009 issue of Poetry magazine


		
			

				
						December 2009
				
			

			
		

			
		


		

			
		


	











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 Kevin  Young

					

							
Biography

							
Three of Kevin 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 describes the collection as re-creating “an inner history which is compelling and . . . 

							
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Originally appeared in Poetry magazine.

		
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