Kevin Young (born 8 November 1970 Lincoln, Nebraska) is an American poet and teacher of poetry. Young graduated from Harvard College in 1992, held a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University (1992–1994), and received his Master of Fine Arts from Brown University. While in Boston and Providence, he was part of the African-American poetry group, The Dark Room Collective. He is heavily influenced by the poets Langston Hughes, John Berryman, and Emily Dickinson and by the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.