In this passionate new collection, Kevin Young takes up a range of African American griefs and passages. He opens with the beautiful "Elegy for Miss Brooks," invoking Gwendolyn Brooks, who died in 2000, and who makes a perfect muse for the volume: "What the devil / are we without you?" he asks. "I tuck your voice, laced / tight, in these brown shoes." In that spirit of intimate community, Young gives us a saucy ballad of Jim Crow, a poem about Lionel Hampton's last concert in Paris, an "African Elegy," which addresses the tragic loss of a close friend in conjunction with the first anniversary of 9/11, and a series entitled "Americana," in which we encounter a clutch of mythical southern towns, such as East Jesus ("The South knows ruin & likes it / thataway—the barns becoming / earth again, leaning in—") and West Hell ("Sin, thy name is this / wait—this place— / a long ways from Here / to There").

For the Confederate Dead finds Young, more than ever before, in a poetic space that is at once public and personal. In the marvelous "Guernica," Young's account of a journey through Spain blends with the news of an American lynching, prompting him to ask, "Precious South, / must I save you, / or myself?" In this surprising book, the poet manages to do a bit of both, embracing the contradictions of our "Confederate" legacy and the troubled nation where that legacy still lingers.

"Much celebrated despite his relative youth, Young has set himself apart from his peers with his supple, variable, blues-inflected line employed in a series of ambitious book-length projects. This bulky yet powerful fifth collection, the title of which references Robert Lowell's famous For the Union Dead, is his first since his debut Most Way Home (1995) without a unifying conceit: its mostly somber lyrics and shorter sequences tell stories of African and African-American pilgrimages and homelands, imagined, fought for and too often lost. Young begins with a passionate elegy to Gwendolyn Brooks and closes with 'Homage to Phyllis Wheatley'; in between comes a tribute to an all-black Midwestern town, terse poems adapted from Booker T. Washington's notebooks and a set of short poems, among Young's best, about rural America. Vivid stanzas describe the vibraphonist Lionel Hampton's last performance: 'Arthritic solos// hover like a bee/ above the flower, finding/ the sweet center.' The volume's emotional center arrives in a sequence commemorating the author's friend Philippe Wamba and recording Young's visit to Tanzania to attend Wamba's funeral. Each component of 'African Elegy' takes its title from a reggae song (Wamba loved reggae), and the sequence combines travelogue with inconsolable grief: 'All this might be easier if/ there wasn't a song/ still lifting us above it,/ if wind didn't trouble// my mind like water.'" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Influenced by blues and jazz, the poet here is a shape-shifter, with the technical prowess to venture just about anywhere." Library Journal

"Young high-steps his way through brightly inventive lyrics that illuminate the spiritual richness and dirt-poor hunger of the rural Deep South, with nods to Zora Neale Hurston and a thrilling riff on Allen Ginsberg's 'America.'" Booklist

"Young's encyclopedic knowledge of American literature doesn't make him derivative; it intensifies and universalizes his work....Besides mourning loss, For the Confederate Dead celebrates the regenerative and enduring power of the imagination." San Francisco Chronicle

"For the Confederate Dead is a lively and excellent collection. Even when they're sad, as they often are, Kevin Young's poems make you want to tap your feet. Young's language dances and he has a wry humor that matches the sweet jazz beat of his voice. This is his fifth collection, but it has the daring and energy of a first book." Los Angeles Times

Kevin Young is the author of three previous collections of poetry and the editor of Library of America's John Berryman: Selected Poems, Everyman's Library Pocket Poets anthology Blues Poems, and Giant Steps: The New Generation of African American Writers. His most recent book, Jelly Roll: A Blues, was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and won the Paterson Poetry Prize. A recent Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, Young is currently Ruth Lilly Professor of Poetry at Indiana University.