Author of 11 books and editor of eight others,[3] Young previously served as Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library.

[6] Young attended Harvard College, where he studied with Seamus Heaney and Lucie Brock-Broido[4] and became friends with writer Colson Whitehead.

[4] He is heavily influenced by the poets Langston Hughes, John Berryman, and Emily Dickinson and by the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

[9] Published by William Morrow in 1995,[7] Most Way Home was selected by Lucille Clifton for the National Poetry Series and won Ploughshares' John C. Zacharis First Book Award.

[8] Writing in Ploughshares, Rob Arnold observes that in that first book Young "explores his own family's narratives, showing an uncanny awareness of voice and persona.

[9] His poem "Black Cat Blues," originally published in The Virginia Quarterly Review, was included in The Best American Poetry 2005.