Kevin Young’s poetry resonates with blues rhythms, cinematic images and African-American history. Named by Village Voice as a “writer on the verge,” Young has published four books of poetry, including Jelly Roll (2003), a finalist for the National Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and Most Way Home (1995), which won the Zacharis First Book Award from Ploughshares. The Providence Black Repertory Theater recently adapted his film noir in verse, Black Maria (2005), for the stage. His latest book is For the Confederate Dead (2007).

Young has edited several volumes of poetry, including Giant Steps: The New Generation of African-American Writers (2000) and Blues Poems (2003). He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, as well as a MacDowell Colony residency.

Young teaches at Emory University, where he curates the 70,000-volume Danowski Poetry Library.

Our story at Literary Arts begins in 1984 with a small lecture series designed to bring leading authors and cultural thinkers to Portland, which was hardly a dot on the literary map. Within four years, demand for tickets moved Portland Arts & Lectures to the 2,700–seat concert hall at which it currently resides. Now a Portland tradition, the series brings the brightest minds of our day to present original talks about literature, art, history and contemporary culture before one of the largest lecture audiences in the country.

In 1993, we joined with the Oregon Institute of Literary Arts to support and celebrate Oregon writers and publishers. This new chapter brought the Oregon Book Awards and Oregon Literary Fellowships, through which we have honored nearly 500 Oregon writers and publishers and distributed more than a half–million dollars in fellowships and awards.

In 1996, we started Writers in the Schools (WITS) to cultivate young readers and writers, and support Oregon authors, through residencies in the public schools. The program has grown to employ 25 Oregon writers each year, who teach semester–long writing workshops in all ten Portland public high schools and several alternative programs.

In 1997, we made literature a part of commuters’ everyday lives with Poetry In Motion®, which displays artfully designed poem cards on buses and lightrail trains throughout the Portland metro area.

In 1998, we introduced the Oregon Book Awards Author Tour, presenting readings by award-winning authors and finalists in rural and underserved communities throughout the state. In 2001, we began Poetry Downtown, bringing world–renowned poets to Portland to read from and discuss their work in a four–part series. In 2004, we brought short fiction to the stage through Verb: Literature in Performance. And in 2005, we offered Delve: Readers’ Seminars, an intimate way for community members to connect around classic works of literature.

In all, our programs reach more than 12,000 writers, readers, teachers and students across the state each year.

We hope you will become part of our story; we want you to share your stories with us. Please call or write to us, or join us at one of our events.

First Congregational United Church of Christ was established in 1851.  This Venetian Gothic church, modeled after Boston's Old South Church, was completed in 1895, and you still can hear its original bell, purchased in 1871, ringing from its 175-foot tower. The church provided much of the land on which the Portland Center for the Performing Arts was built. COST: Free. OPEN: Weekdays 9-2.

Our current sanctuary and 175-foot bell tower was built in 1891, designed by Swiss architect Henry J. Hefty to resemble Old South Church in Boston.  The stained glass windows were designed by Povey Brothers of Portland.  We are people of different ages, education, races, abilities, sexual orientations and gender identities.  We hold varying theological and political beliefs and come from different socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds.  We celebrate and find strength in that diversity and view it as a way of understanding the inclusiveness of God's love.  We celebrate the image of God in every person and we affirm all relationships of support that are founded on the principles of love and justice.  We encourage all members to share their talents, gifts and energy in the life, work and leadership of the church.  We are a community which is spiritually alive, intellectually curious, and open to new learning, ideas and scholarship.  We are tolerant and supportive of other religious traditions and committed to learning about and from them.