{"product_id":"night-watch-poems","title":"Night Watch","description":"\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES \u003c\/i\u003eNOTABLE BOOK - WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR POETRY - LONGLISTED FOR THE GRIFFIN POETRY PRIZE - A \u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e Editors' Choice - From the award-winning poet at the height of his career, a book of personal and American experiences, both beautiful and troubling, touching on the generative cycle of loss and renewal \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Kevin Young is a poet of exceptional depth and sensitivity. . . . Let yourself focus on every phrase.\" --Ron Charles, \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eNight Watch \u003c\/i\u003econtinues one of the most vital currents in contemporary poetry, transforming history and its silences into lyric through the poet's eloquent invitation: 'O wounded soul, \/ speak.'\" \u003ci\u003e--The New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFollowing on his exquisite \u003ci\u003eStones\u003c\/i\u003e, Kevin Young's new collection, written over the span of sixteen years, shapes stories of loss and legacy, inspired in part by other lives. After starting in the bayous of his family's Louisiana, Young journeys to further states of mind in \"All Souls,\" evoking \"The whale \/ who finds the shore \/ \u0026amp; our poor prayers.\" Another central sequence, \"The Two-Headed Nightingale,\" is spoken by Millie-Christine McCoy, the famous conjoined African American \"Carolina Twins.\" Born into enslavement, stolen, and then displayed by P. T. Barnum and others, the twins later toured the world as free women, their alto and soprano voices harmonizing their own way. Young's poem explores their evolving philosophical selfhood and pluralities: \"As one we sang, \/we spake-- \/ She was the body \/ I the soul \/ Without one \/ Perishes the whole.\"\u003cbr\u003e In \"Darkling,\" a cycle of poems inspired by Dante's \u003ci\u003eDivine Comedy\u003c\/i\u003e, Young expands and embroiders the circles of Hell, drawing a cosmology of both loneliness and accompaniment, where \"the dead don't know \/ what to do \/ with themselves.\" Young writes of grief and hope as familiar yet surprising states: \"It's like a language, \/ loss--,\" he writes, \"learnt only \/ by living--there--.\" Evoking the history of poetry, from the darkling thrush to the darkling plain, Young is defiant and playful on the way through purgatory to a kind of paradise. When he goes, he warns, \"don't dare sing \u003ci\u003eAmazing Grace\u003c\/i\u003e\"--that \"National \/ Anthem of Suffering.\" Instead, he suggests, \"When I Fly Away, \/ Don't dare hold no vigil . . . Just burn the whole \/ Town on down.\"\u003cbr\u003e This collection will stand as one of Young's best--his voice shaping sorrow with music, wisdom, heartache, and wit.","brand":"Knopf Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51669753725218,"sku":"9780593319628","price":29.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0974\/8637\/3154\/files\/imageloader_b5805ea4-4104-46a3-8025-15a016e64ef5.jpg?v=1779711924","url":"https:\/\/godmothers.com\/products\/night-watch-poems","provider":"Godmothers","version":"1.0","type":"link"}