Al Young


Al Young is an American poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and professor.
On May 15, 2005, he was named Poet Laureate of California by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. In appointing Young as Poet Laureate, the Governor praised him: "He is an educator and a man with a passion for the Arts. His remarkable talent and sense of mission to bring poetry into the lives of Californians is an inspiration." Muriel Johnson, Director of the California Arts Council declared: "Like jazz, Al Young is an original American voice." Young's many books include novels, collections of poetry, essays, and memoirs. His work has appeared in literary journals and magazines including Paris Review, Ploughshares, Essence, The New York Times, Chicago Review, Seattle Review, Brilliant Corners: A Journal of Jazz & Literature, Chelsea, Rolling Stone, Gathering of the Tribes, and in anthologies including the Norton Anthology of African American Literature, and the Oxford Anthology of African American Literature.

Early life

Born May 31, 1939, in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, on the Gulf Coast near Biloxi, Young grew up in the rural South of villages and small towns, and in urban, industrial Detroit. From 1957 to 1960 he attended the University of Michigan, where he co-edited Generation, the campus literary magazine. In 1961 he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. Settling at first in Berkeley, he held a variety of colorful jobs before graduating with honors from U.C. Berkeley with a degree in Spanish.

Teaching career

Young has taught poetry, fiction writing and American literature at U.C. Berkeley, U.C. Santa Cruz, U.C. Davis, Bowling Green State University, Foothill College, the Colorado College, Rice University, the University of Washington, the University of Michigan, and the University of Arkansas. He has taught at Charles University in the Czech Republic under the auspices of the Prague Summer Programs.
From 1969 to 1976 he was Edward B. Jones Lecturer in Creative Writing at Stanford near Palo Alto, where he lived and worked for three decades.
In 2002, he was appointed the San José State University Lurie Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing.
In the spring of 2003 he taught poetry at Davidson College, where he was McGee Professor in Writing.
In the fall of 2003, as the first Coffey Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC, he taught a poetry workshop.
From 2003 to 2006 he served on the faculty of Cave Canem's summer workshop retreats for African American poets.

Honors and awards

He has twice received the American Book Award, for Bodies and Soul: Musical Memoirs and The Sound of Dreams Remembered: Poems 1990-2000.
Young was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Whittier College in 2009.
In the 1970s, he wrote film scripts for producer Joseph Strick, Sidney Poitier, Bill Cosby, and Richard Pryor.
In the 1980s and 1990s, as a cultural ambassador for the United States Information Agency, he traveled throughout South Asia, Egypt, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian West Bank.
In 2001 he traveled to the Persian Gulf to lecture on American and African-American literature and culture in Kuwait and in Bahrain for the U.S. Department of State. Subsequent lecture tours took him to Southern Italy in 2004, and to Italy in 2005. His poetry and prose have been translated into Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Norwegian, Serbo-Croatian, Polish, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, German, Urdu, Korean, and other languages. Blending story, recitation and song, Young often performs with musicians.
His marriage to technical writer and editor Arline Young produced one child: their son Michael. In 2000 he returned to Berkeley, where he continues to freelance.

Published works

Full-Length Poetry Collections
Chapbooks
Musical Memoirs
Novels
Collaborations
Anthologies Edited