Kevin Young is the author of four poetry collections, most recently Black Maria, a film noir in verse, and Jelly Roll: A Blues, winner of the Paterson Poetry Prize and a finalist for the National Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His first book Most Way Home was a National Poetry Series selection and winner of the John C. Zacharis First Book Award from Ploughshares. Young is also the editor of Giant Steps: The New Generation of African American Writers, Library of America’s John Berryman: Selected Poems, and Everyman’s Pocket Poets series volumes Blues Poems and Jazz Poems. The recent recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, Young is currently Atticus Haygood Professor of English and Creative Writing and Curator of the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.