Kathleen Tankersley Young

Poet and Harlem Renaissance–era editor Kathleen Tankersley Young was born in rural West Texas on August 15, 1902. She subsequently gave her birthplace as Cincinnati (April 15, 1903) and New York City (1905), depending on the circumstance. Young published three books during her lifetime: Ten Poems (1930), The Dark Land (1932), and The Pepper Trees (1932). In 1929, she served as an editor for Blues: A Magazine of New Rhythms along with coeditors Charles Henri Ford and Parker Tyler. Blues published work by poets including E. E. Cummings, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams, and Louis Zukofsky. Young went on to edit for the Denver-based The Echo and the Modern Editions Poetry series. Sublunary Editions published Young’s posthumous Collected Works in 2022. Young mysteriously died at the age of 30 in Mexico on April 9, 1933; the official cause of death was listed as suicide by Lysol poisoning.