The willed recovery of what's been lost - often forcibly, I suppose - is what keeps me going. It is this reason I found myself a poet and a collector and now a curator: to save what we didn't even know needed saving.
Kevin YoungRead
At our peril, we ignore the fact that black vernacular, like the blues, both has a form and performs... For just as there would be no American music without black folks, there would be very little of our American language.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the significance of black vernacular and blues in shaping American language and music.
Kevin Young emphasizes the deep connection between black vernacular, the blues, and the broader landscape of American culture. By acknowledging that American music and language owe much to the contributions of black individuals, he urges recognition of these influences, illustrating that neglecting this heritage would be a disservice to the richness of American identity.
Themes
VernacularBluesLanguageMusicCultureBlack History
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture about the influences of African American culture on American literature, this quote could be used to emphasize the importance of vernacular.
More from Kevin Young
All quotes →Race is the true protagonist of the American novel. Our most popular classic fictions have known this, from 'Moby Dick' to 'Beloved;' all these books take on race or talk it out, often in other forms; they are less 'horror stories for boys' than ghost stories from a haunted conscience.
Kevin YoungRead
There's something about the kind of time travel that a poem can provide. It can take you to somewhere else - a culture far from you, a language far from you, but suddenly you're there. You're that person, seeing with that person's eyes. I think that's really tremendous. Even things like cinema or more traditional history can't quite do that.
Kevin YoungRead
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