Interview with Al Young

Abstract

Al Young has published three books of poetry-Dancing (Corinth, 1969), The Song Turning Back into Itself (1971), and Geography of the New Past (1976), as well as three novels-Snakes (1970), Who Is Angelina? (1975), and Sitting Pretty (1976). The last five works were published by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. He has won the Joseph Henry Jackson Award, a number of National Arts Council prizes, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Along with Ishmael Reed and others he founded the Yardbird Publishing Corporation early in the seventies and has served as the editor of Yardbird/Wing Editions. He and Reed currently edit the journal Y'Bird. The following interview took place on April 3, 1978, the day before Young's reading as part of USC's Contemporary Literature Week. Following the car ride from L.A. International, lunch in Venice, an hour or so at the beach in Santa Monica watching workmen repave a parking lot, several rounds of beer in my backyard, and so forth, we got down to business in my office at USC, both of us gazing out the window from time to time at the giant neon cat on the Felix Chevrolet car lot across the street.