Al Young
Al Young was an influential African American poet, autobiographer, and educator, born on May 31, 1939, in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Raised in a segregated environment, he benefited from an education that emphasized Black American literature and culture, which greatly influenced his creative work. After moving to Detroit and then Berkeley, California, he held various jobs while pursuing his passion for writing. Young earned his bachelor's degree in creative writing from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1969 and went on to teach at several universities, including Stanford. His literary contributions include nearly twenty published works, encompassing poetry, memoirs, and fiction, many of which explore the relationship between music and personal experience. Notable for his stream-of-consciousness style, Young's writings often reflect a hopeful perspective while addressing contemporary issues. He served as California's poet laureate from 2005 to 2008 and received numerous accolades throughout his career, including multiple American Book Awards. Young passed away on April 17, 2021, leaving behind a legacy that resonates with universality and cultural significance.
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Al Young
Writer
- Born: May 31, 1939
- Birthplace: Ocean Springs, Mississippi
- Died: April 17, 2021
- Place of death: Concord, California
During his life, Young wrote in many genres but was best known for his poetry, memoirs, and fiction. His works show his appreciation for music, as he saw a connection between the beats and rhythms of everyday life and musical compositions. His writing is infused with themes found in jazz, blues, and contemporary songs.
Areas of achievement: Literature; Poetry; Theater
Early Life
Albert James Young Jr. was born in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, on May 31, 1939, to Albert James Young Sr., a professional musician and an auto worker, and Mary Campbell Young. He grew up in the rural, segregated South but considered himself lucky to have been placed in a special classroom in the second grade. The Kingston School for Colored in the 1940s placed a heavy emphasis on Black American literature and culture. Young memorized poems by Langston Hughes and Paul Laurence Dunbar and became well acquainted with Black history and creative arts.
Upon his father’s discharge from the navy, the family moved to Detroit. From 1957 to 1960, Young attended the University of Michigan. In 1961, he moved to Berkeley, California, and picked up a wide assortment of jobs, including folk singer, lab aide, disc jockey, medical photographer, clerk typist, and employment counselor. On October 8, 1963, he married Arline Belck, a freelance artist, a technical writer, and an editor; in 1971, they had a son, Michael James.
Young earned a bachelor of arts degree with honors from the University of California at Berkeley in 1969. From 1969 to 1976, he was the Edward B. Jones Lecturer in creative writing at Stanford University.
Life’s Work
Young said that he began writing poetry to “make out the sound of his own background.” That he saw a clear relationship between music and everyday living is most evident in two volumes of his five autobiographies: Kinds of Blue: Musical Memoirs (1984) and Drowning in the Sea of Love: Musical Memoirs (1995). In each, Young etches significant life events through the songs that were popular at that time.
For example, Young recounts an experience he had at age three, watching a fly caught in a spider web, still fluttering its wings as it was devoured head first. Young saw all of life in this tiny moment and wondered at its horrible beauty. The music he associated with the incident was the Ink Spots’ 1943 rendition of “Java Jive” and the Andrew Sisters’ “They’ve Got an Awful Lot of Coffee in Brazil.” He also linked these songs to memories of his aunt Ethel, a coffee lover he described in poetic detail. Young’s musical memoirs are not written chronologically but in a stream-of-consciousness style, with one memory leading to another and music summoning long-ago associations.
Most of Young’s poetry is autobiographical, often upbeat and hopeful, although he also showed concern about the growing disconnectedness associated with the increasing reliance on technology. He also wrote tributes to musicians such as Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Sarah Vaughan, George Gershwin, James Brown, and Janis Joplin. He brought the musical past into focus for contemporary readers.
During the 1970s, Young wrote and collaborated on screenplays for Richard Pryor, Sidney Poitier, and Bill Cosby. By 2010, Young had published nearly twenty works of fiction, memoir, and poetry, and edited several literary anthologies. He also had taught at a number of universities, including the University of Washington, University of Michigan, and Davidson College. From 2005 to 2008, he was the poet laureate of California.
Throughout his academic years, Young received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship (1974), three National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships (1968, 1969, 1975), a Fulbright Fellowship (1969), and two American Book Awards, for Bodies and Soul: Musical Memoirs (1981) and The Sound of Dreams Remembered: Poems, 1990-2000 (2001). His work has been widely anthologized and has been translated into more than one dozen languages. He won awards for fiction and nonfiction and was a highly sought-after public reader, performer, and lecturer, covering topics in literature, music, creativity, the arts, and Black American culture.
Young remained engaged in his work even into his seventies, publishing Something about the Blues: An Unlikely Collection of Poetry, which featured an audio component, in 2008. He made several speaking and reading appearances into the 2010s. In 2019, Young suffered a stroke and was placed in a nursing care center. He died of complications from the stroke on April 17, 2021, in Concord, California. He was eighty-one.
Significance
Young’s work was important for the universality of his writings. He never attempted to conform the subjects or style of his work to the expectations of White people or Black people. He eschewed stereotypes and created unique characterizations; for example, the poem “A Dance for Militant Dilettantes” criticizes White people for stereotypical thinking while also indicting Black militants.
Bibliography
Battaglia, Joseph F. “Al Young.” Critical Survey of Long Fiction, edited by Carl Rollyson. 4th ed. 10 vols. Pasadena, Calif.: Salem Press, 2010.
Chapman, Abraham, ed. New Black Voices: An Anthology of Contemporary Afro-American Literature. New York: New American Library, 1972.
Genzlinger, Neil. "Al Young, Poet with a Musical Bent, Is Dead at 81." The New York Times, 23 Apr. 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/04/23/books/al-young-dead.html. Accessed 6 Sept. 2022.
Young, Al. Drowning in a Sea of Love: Musical Memoirs. San Francisco, Calif.: Ecco Press, 1995.
Young, Al. Kind of Blue: Musical Memoirs. San Francisco, Calif.: Ecco Press, 1984.