Shock by Shock

By Dean Young

"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

"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 (Toronto)

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 "Harvest":

Bring me the high heart of a trapezist.
If not, bring me the heart of a drunk monk
so I may illuminate an ancient text
in a language I can't understand.
The brain too is blood, blood racing
100 miles an hour on training wheels
so let me splash through a red puddle,
let me kiss the face of a red puddle,
let me write my crazed, extreme demands
on the frost-cracked window of god's split
chest…

Dean Young is the author of twelve books of poetry, including finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and Griffin Award. He teaches at the University of Texas and lives in Austin.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
• Release date: Aug 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781619321472

Dean Young

Dean Young was born in Columbia, Pennsylvania, and received his MFA from Indiana University. His collections of poetry include Strike Anywhere (1995), winner of the Colorado Prize for Poetry; Skid (2002), finalist for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize; Elegy on Toy Piano (2005), finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; and Primitive Mentor (2008), shortlisted for the International Griffin Poetry Prize. He has also written a book on poetics, The Art of Recklessness: Poetry as Assertive Force and Contradiction (2010).

Book preview

Could Have Danced All Night

The wolf appointed to tear me apart

is sure making slow work of it.

This morning just one eye weeping,

a single chip out of my back and

the usual maniacal wooden bird flute

in my brain. Listen to that feeble howl

as if having fangs is something to regret,

as if we shouldn’t give thanks for blood

thirst. Even my idiot neighbor backing out

without looking could do a better job,

even that leaning diseased tree or dream

of a palsied hand squeezing the throat but

we’ve been at this for years, lying exposed

on the couch in the fat of the afternoon

staring down the moon among the night blooms.

What good’s a reluctant wolf?

The other wolves just get it drunk

then tie it to a post. Poor pup.

Here’s my hand. Bite.

Unlikely Materials

Continued soggy in the personal today

although two strangers smiled at me,

one because I couldn’t open a plastic bag

either, the other because I stepped aside

as if I was holding the door for her

even though it was an automatic door.

The peaches, first of the season, were tiny

and powerful as baby rattlesnakes.

A branch had fallen on the driveway

by the time I got home like a friendly

arm over a shoulder so I sat in the car

listening to the rain try to find its melody,

not wanting to flunk my student for not

turning in his 20 pages on clouds

after promising he would. You’re singing,

I say every class. Even in the heart

of an artichoke, there’s probably a god.

Energy is stored in the triphosphate bond

then released when that bond is broken.

Is that why everything is so hard?

One big pearl, said the Buddha, then glanced

shyly about to make sure no one

understood him. We know only that the spirit

is not matter, is not sap stilling in the veins

or even mist coalesced of the last breath,

sang Orpheus before being torn apart.

Street of Blind Knife Throwers

One of the best I’ve known couldn’t

get out of bed without a drink or a smoke.

Some carry swords purely for show.

Many come and go talking in non sequiturs.

For a while, one who rhymed was so uptight

rhyme was ruined for the rest of us but

of course there’s a world in a handful of dust.

One thought she was a genius for putting

9 commas in a row. Do not be too quick

to embrace an alternative energy source,

let fracking be your guide. Some things

can only be found when you hide. Sometimes

it’s like a fistfight to decide who’s

the biggest pacifist. At dawn the traveler

makes his farewell song. Is there anything

duller than an inaugural poem? One couldn’t

write about his father not coming back

from Vietnam without a word list. Do not

underestimate the power of artificial flowers.

Euripides, strawberries, mist. Hence

his tears. The liner notes say that sound

is the cellist scraping his metal chair.

Amplify the accident. Petrify the whim.

The smell is the emergency brake.

Play vigorously with the lid closed, wrote

Satie in the margin. As if about to be devoured

by ants, recommended Lorca before being shot

in the head. Blood, sugar, gasoline

and spot remover. Some come directly

from the sky, others take more circuitous

routes. Like a red rose and just as corny,

one makes every mouth a wound. A few,

in plastic, lie upon the caskets. Clock face,

palace, pavement, crown, all fall down.

Some strain their thorny leashes, others

just bow down.

Reviews for Shock by Shock

[jnwelch_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I've liked Dean Young's poetry for a long time. You can count on being surprised and provoked when you read him. He's often been called a Surrealist, and he embraces it. One poem here is titled, "Why I Haven't 'Outgrown' Surrealism No Matter What That Moron Reviewer Wrote". Ha!What makes this collection a bit different is that Shock by Shock is his first since he received a heart transplant. Four months in a hospital recovering.the bodyis a vessel of flame-flickerand even in dreams I say my lover’sname so picture me for verisimilitudemade entirely of sunflowers but keepthe long scar in the center of my chest,under it a grim doctrine frolicson a dissecting table. I who have beenrestored by cardiac shocks, droppedinto morning wanton and struck.“…When / you are waiting for a new heart / you are waiting for someone to die.” (”How I got Through My Last Day on the Transplant List”)…the god. . . likes the theater, the gowns and masksthe rib-cage splitter and ceremonialreaching into the chestand a stranger, a boy really,the heart of a reckless, generous boylifted from its coolerand sutured into a carnal afterlife,rose by rose, ladder by ladder,shock by shock by shock.He's a master of great titles and provocative lines. From "Street of Blind Knife Throwers" (ha!), one I took to be about poets:One thought she was a genius for putting9 commas in a row. Do not be too quickto embrace an alternative energy source,let fracking be your guide. Some thingscan only be found when you hide. Sometimesit's like a fistfight to decide who'sthe biggest pacifist.One of my favorites in this collection, with another great title:Crash Test Dummies of an Imperfect GodBecause we are so stupid,the prizes in Cracker Jacks are now paperso they can be swallowed, laddersspackled with warnings. No gettingwithin a hundred feet of Stonehenge becauseeveryone wants to hack off a souvenirand the way home is clogged to one laneso whoever wants to can stare into a potholeuntil coming up with a grievance. I’d votethe greatest accomplishment of mankindis the pickle spear. God created paradiseto tell us Get out! which is why we probablycreated God who doesn’t much like being createdby ilk like us. No wonder it’s pediatricsevery morning and toxicology by happy hour.Is it all in the mind, the dirty, dirty mind?Maybe God tried to turn you into a garbage canso you could be lifted by the truck’s hydraulicarms and banged empty. Maybe a snow coneso you could be sticky-sweet and dropped.Maybe a genital-faced bivalve to be dashedwith Tabasco and eaten whole or, to his glory,produce a pearl.* * * *Hard not to be inspired by this guy.