l Young doesn't spend his time in sandboxes, or at the neighborhood playground. But he says his new job as poet laureate of California feels like being a kid again.
"To be skillful, to be surprised, and to have people, often, come away with a fresh interpretation of your work every time is amazing," said Young, chuckling at the thought of doing anything else with his life besides writing.
The former Palo Alto resident, 66, has published three decades of poetry and prose, crossing geographical, social and topical bounds. With a strong political bent, he mixes styles, interests and life experiences in his work.
His most famous writings include the 1976 novel "Sitting Pretty," the 1992 poetry book "Heaven," and his 1996 poetry chapter book "Conjugal Visits."
Besides covering a range of topics, Young writes in many voices. He believes it's boring to establish a distinguishable voice in every poem.
"It's always very exciting because I have no idea what shape or form it's going to take," Young said of his work.
In one poem, "Conjugal Visits," Young tells a vivid story of a black woman visiting her husband at San Quentin State Prison:
"All these Black men crammed up in jail, all this I.Q. on ice, while governments, bank presidents, the Mafia don't think twice.
They fly in dope and make real sure they hands stay nice and clean. The chump-change Reece made on the street -- what's that supposed to mean?
'For what it cost the State to keep you locked down, clothed and fed, you could be learning Harvard stuff, and brilliant skills,' I said."
In another, "Doo-Wop," he celebrates the commonality of humans with the backdrop of black music in the '60s.
No matter what voice Young uses, he always "has the dynamic ability to be 'right there,'" Young's friend Diem Jones said. Jones is also director of grants programs at Arts Council Silicon Valley.
"You can hear it leap from the page, whereas a lot of writers write flat," Jones said.
The rhythmical nature of the former disc jockey's deep, smooth voice comes alive in the poems, and "once you hear his voice, you can then hear him reciting his writing," Jones added.
Of "Conjugal Visits," Jones said: "You get involved in the story, and by the end, it has you thinking. Al will definitely have you thinking."
Even at the age of 3 when Young learned to read, he knew that he would become a poet.
As he was growing up in Mississippi, Detroit and in other parts of the South, oral recitation and storytelling were fundamental aspects of his childhood. He said that people entertained each other by telling stories and entertaining one another.
"I thought the coolest thing to do was to write and to share insights with others," he said.
He began publishing poems, stories, and articles in his early teens before attending the University of Michigan from 1957 to 1960, where he co-edited the "Generation," the campus literary magazine.
Young eventually migrated to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1961, living in Berkeley. He took a number of odd jobs -- as a folksinger, a lab aide and a D.J. at KJAZ, to name a few -- before earning a degree in Spanish from the University of California at Berkeley.
From 1969 to 1976, he was the Edward B. Jones Lecturer in Creative Writing at Stanford University. He also taught at a number of other universities, including San Jose State University and Foothill College.
Young lived in Palo Alto for 30 years, recently moving back to Berkeley.
Some of Young's notable honors have been the Wallace Stegner Writing Fellowship and the Guggenheim Fellowship. Most recently, he was named California Poet Laureate in May by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The poet laureate's role is to inspire young literary artists and to educate all Californians about the poets and authors who have influenced the state of California through creative literary expression. The two-year appointment pays $10,000.
Locally, Young also received an Artists Fellowship from Arts Council Silicon Valley. At De Anza College, his birthday, May 31, is "Al Young Day," and students are required to memorize a poem.
"It's always amazing to see these young people getting into a poem for one reason or another and shedding light on something that I would have never thought of," Young said.
In his eyes, poetry is a communal process that doesn't take meaning until other people plug into it. He describes this as a magical force, saying that poetry is one of our basic human languages.
Of all his writing, Young's favorite is a 64-word poem titled "For Poets." In it he says:
"Come on out into the sunlight
Breathe in trees
Knock out mountains
Commune with snakes
& be the very hero of birds."
For him, the best part is the last line: "Don't forget to fly."
Those four words, he says, express the idea that we are capable of imagination, able to access the higher parts of ourselves, to achieve the miraculous.
"When you do that, a lot of barriers come tumbling down," he said.
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