Literature / Music
Al Young
1939–2021 · poet, novelist, essayist
California poet laureate (2005–2008) who spent his youth in Detroit, graduated from Central High and set his first novel, Snakes, among the city's teenage musicians.
- Born
Ocean Springs, Mississippi- Died
Concord, California
aged 81- Birth name
- Albert James Young
- Detroit years
- 1940s–1957
- Field
- Literature, Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Young was born on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and divided his childhood between the South and Detroit, where his family joined the wartime migration north. He came of age in the city's rich music culture, graduating from Central High School in 1957 before going on to the University of Michigan, where he co-edited the campus literary magazine. Music and memory run through all his work. His first novel, Snakes (1970), follows a Detroit teenager who forms a band and finds his voice through rhythm and blues and jazz, and his memoir-like 'musical memoirs' return again and again to the records and radio of his youth. He later taught across the country and served as California's poet laureate.
Highlights
- Poet Laureate of California, 2005–2008
- Snakes (1970), a novel about a young musician in Detroit
- Two American Book Awards
- Central High School graduate, Detroit (1957)
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · 1950s–1957
Detroit Central High School
He graduated from Central High in 1957.