The Coverage of Kevin Young’s Ardency

The coverage of Kevin Young’s newest book Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels is turning out to be quite impressive, especially when we consider how little commentary usually accompanies new volumes of poetry.

The following links constitute reviews and interviews related to Ardency. If you come across pieces I'm missing, please let me know.

On January 18, Publishers Weekly included a short write-up about Young's book.

On January 25, The New York Journal of Books published David Cooper's extensive review of Young's book. Cooper closes by noting that"Ardency is a book that deserves a wider readership than the genres of history and poetry normally enjoy. Its individual poems are also recommended to editors of high school history textbooks seeking ways to make the past come alive."

On Feb. 1, the California Chronicle published an article by Donna Seaman about Ardency, which also includes comments about the book from Young.

On Feb. 4, Studio 360 posted an interview with Young about Ardency, where he reads from one of the poems from the book and discusses various other issues. 

On Feb. 7, The Takeaway posted an interview with Young, where among other things, he discusses the musicality of the poems and the question of when, exactly, Africans became Americans or African Americans.

On Feb. 9, Atlanta's Creative Loafing published an article by Wyatt Williams about Young and Ardency.

In the Feb/March 2011 issue of Bookforum, Craig Morgan Teicher provides a review of Ardency. Teicher notes that this book "moves slower than Young's other book-length sequences, favoring an accumulation of perspectives over narrative momentum. But it's powerful stuff, some of the prolific Young's best, driven by his ventriloquistic skills and sense of loss."

On Feb. 13, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette published a review of Ardency by Elizabeth Hoover.

On Feb. 15, The Paris Review included an interview with Young about Ardency. What drew Young to his subject for the book? He says, "I stumbled on letters the Amistad prisoners wrote from jail. I was struck by their poignancy and how the prisoners spoke in this new language of English. But I was struck by what the letters didn’t say, what was permitted of them to say, and, then, what they did mange to say because of or despite those limits."

In early February, At Length online magazine published a few excerpts from Ardency. 

On Feb. 20, Playback: STL published a review of Ardency by Matthew Treon.  

On Feb. 24, The St. Louis American published an interview Kevin Young about Ardency. 

On March 3, Young noted on his twitter page that he "just heard" that  "ARDENCY is going into 2nd edition!"

On March 7, Young was interviewed about his book on The Leonard Lopate Show.

In March, Levi Rubeck's review of Ardency appeared on Thethe Poetry.

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