Purchase
Poems
Knopf
March 2014
On Sale: March 4, 2014
208 pages
ISBN: 0307272249
EAN: 9780307272249
Hardcover
Add to Wish List
Fiction Poetry
A decade after the sudden and tragic loss of his father, we witness the unfolding of grief. βIn the night I brush / my teeth with a razor,β he tells us, in one of the collectionβs piercing two-line poems. Capturing the strange silence of bereavement (βNot the storm / but the calm / that slays meβ), Kevin Young acknowledges, even celebrates, lifeβs passages, his loss transformed and tempered in a sequence about the birth of his son: in βCrowning,β he delivers what is surely one of the most powerful birth poems written by a man, describing βher face / full of fire, then groaning your face / out like a flower, blood-bloom,/ crocused into air.β Ending this book of both birth and grief, the gorgeous title sequence brings acceptance, asking βWhat good/are wishes if they arenβt / used up?β while understanding βHow to listen / to whatβs gone.β Youngβs frank music speaks directly to the reader in these elemental poems, reminding us that the right words can both comfort us and enlarge our understanding of lifeβs mysteries.
 Media BuzzFresh Air - NPR - March 4, 2014
| 
© 2003-2026