Poet and Critic Kevin Young to Speak at Grace Farms on March 16

Grace Farms Foundation will welcome Kevin Young, Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem and Poetry Editor of The New Yorker, for a free public discussion of his latest book, "Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News," which was recently longlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction. Young, who will speak at Grace Farms on Friday, March 16 at 7:30 p.m., is a prominent contemporary poet and a renowned cultural critic. He is the author of 11 books of poetry and prose, including "Blue Laws: Selected and Uncollected Poems, 1995-2015," which gained national recognition when it was published in 2016.

In "Bunk," Young traces our country’s long history of “hoaxing” and uncovers the considerable racial anxieties and delusions often underlying the practice. He explores figures like Rachel Dolezal, JT LeRoy, Lance Armstrong, Jayson Blair, Nasdiij, Opal Whiteley, Jerzey Kosinski, Sybil, and Clark Rockefeller; séances, spirit photography, and fairies; freak shows and circus acts; “imaginary Indians;” fake autobiographies, made-up memoirs, and phony journalism; and much more.

Young examines our current “post-fact” world, which he calls “The Age of Euphemism.” As he writes, “These days we’re experiencing a flood—not of facts but factoids, not of truth but truthiness. In an age where reality is something experienced on television, where we’ve substituted the tragic for tragedy—that is, tales of what can go wrong instead of ideas of right and wrong—we’ve become especially vulnerable.”

The talk is offered free to the public. To register for the March 16 event, visit gracefarms.org/calendar.

Grace Farms is located at 365 Lukes Wood Road in New Canaan, Conn.

Photo of Kevin Young: Melanie Dunea/CPi