[In Shock by Shock] Young retains his considerable charms: a
generous, tragicomic spirit, a guileless love of rhyme, and an acrobatic
sense of logic and image. --Publishers Weekly
In Young's work, the big essential questions--mortality, identity, the
meaning of life--aren't simply food for thought; they're grounds for
entertainment. --The Sunday Star
Dean Young challenges the reader to hang on as he jigs from one poetic
style to another and sets a wondrous course across a Duchampian
landscape. --Chicago Tribune
Dean Young escorts his transplanted heart into invigorating poetic
territory that combines the joy of being alive with his signature
mixture of surrealism, humor, and fast-cut imagery. A Pulitzer finalist
known for his hard-won insights, NPR said it best when they observed
that Young sees even in the smallest things the heights of what we can
be.
From Light Bringers:
Once my mother was a child playing
a child's violin then they used a motorized
crank to lower her in and the ground covered
itself like a mouth filling with wildflowers.
Then snow and whatever was left alive
burrowed deeper. Maybe a river meanders
because it knows its destination.
Dean Young has published eleven books of poetry, including finalists
for the Pulitzer Prize and Griffin Award. He is the William Livingston
Chair of Poetry at the University of Texas and lives in Austin.
