Award-winning poet Kevin Young to speak at UCI

EVENT:  Award-wining poet Kevin Young will give a public talk at UCI as part of the Chancellor’s Distinguished Speakers Series. He will address the role of fact and fiction in his work and in the contemporary public sphere, from scholarship to news, as well as read from his newest book, Brown: Poems.

WHEN/WHERE:   5-6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 26, in the Crystal Cove Auditorium at the UCI Student Center (bldg. 113, grid D5 on campus map: https://www.parking.uci.edu/maps/documents/UCI-CampusCore_2018.pdf)

INFORMATION:  The event is free and open to the public. Visitor parking is available for $10 in the Student Center Parking Structure (grid C/D5 on campus map). Media planning to attend should contact Pat Harriman at 949-824-9055 or pharrima@uci.edu. Parking is complimentary for media who RSVP in advance.

BACKGROUND:   Young has published 10 books of poetry and two books of essays and has received many honors for his work, including the 2018 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in nonfiction for Bunk, the Academy of American Poets’ 2015 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for Book of Hours, and the Before Columbus Foundation’s 2012 American Book Award for Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels. His most recent release, Brown: Poems, is a New York Times Editor’s Choice selection. He is also poetry editor at The New Yorker and director of the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

The Chancellor’s Distinguished Speakers Series, launched in 1999 by then-Chancellor Ralph Cicerone, brings to campus high-profile leaders and change-makers who share their insights and expertise.

For more information about the event – co-sponsored by Illuminations, the Campus Climate Commission, the UCI Libraries, the Department of African American Studies and the M.F.A. Programs in Writing – visit https://www.humanities.uci.edu/SOH/calendar/events.php?recid=7311&dept_code_val=all&event_cat=current&file_name=events