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Poems
Knopf
March 2014
On Sale: March 4, 2014
208 pages
ISBN: 0307272249
EAN: 9780307272249
Hardcover
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Fiction Poetry
A decade after the sudden and tragic loss of his father, we witness the unfolding of grief. โIn the night I brush / my teeth with a razor,โ he tells us, in one of the collectionโs piercing two-line poems. Capturing the strange silence of bereavement (โNot the storm / but the calm / that slays meโ), Kevin Young acknowledges, even celebrates, lifeโs passages, his loss transformed and tempered in a sequence about the birth of his son: in โCrowning,โ he delivers what is surely one of the most powerful birth poems written by a man, describing โher face / full of fire, then groaning your face / out like a flower, blood-bloom,/ crocused into air.โ Ending this book of both birth and grief, the gorgeous title sequence brings acceptance, asking โWhat good/are wishes if they arenโt / used up?โ while understanding โHow to listen / to whatโs gone.โ Youngโs 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 lifeโs mysteries.
 Media BuzzFresh Air - NPR - March 4, 2014
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