Below is the youtube video of me reading one of Kevin Young's poems. The poem I have chosen is the oath. I also have a separate video of Kevin reading this poem. I believe it is a great poem that emphasizes the style of poetry Kevin writes.
Below are two poems of Kevin Young. I have chosen these two poems because of how they represent Young's style of poetry. In the first one(to the left), Kevin is writing about some of the struggle as an African American. This is very common among his work. Not only to write about the specific struggle as a black person (both in the past and present), but he also composes his poetry about other hardships many people face. The second poem (to the right), Kevin uses a unique and modern writing style. He replaces the first letter of words in lines with the first letter of another main word in the lines. This makes what otherwise would be an easy, read through poem, a poem in which the reader has to double back and check the meaning of the words. While the misspelling of words may seem disruptive, the poem actually has a flow to it. This just demonstrates Young's ability to write with a rhythm and keep a beat throughout his poetry.
Here is a clip of Kevin Young reading Oath. He is reading this for President Barack Obama's inauguration. As a jazz poet, Kevin reads this with a certain rhythm and beat to the poem. You can clearly hear this as he emphasizes specific words and phrases and pauses at certain points. It is a shorter poem and is not extremely hard to follow, but Kevin provides an excellent reading of this poem. Here is a link to the original video found on Yahoo News. http://news.yahoo.com/oath--a-poem-for-the-inauguration-of-president-obama-by-kevin-young-223324497.html  Here are some more of Kevin readings of his poetry. One cannot help but notice his voice pausing and syllables used while reading to really capture the poem's essence. I really enjoy his reading of Aunties. When I first came across this poem, I was just learning about Kevin and his style of poetry. I think this poem is an excellent poem and really demonstrates his kind of poetry.
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