Skid

By Dean Young
(University of Pittsburgh Press, Paperback, 9780822957805, 112pp.)

Publication Date: January 2002

Categories: American - General

“Young’s poems ignore and gently deride the familiar, anticipated forms of serious poetry--and in doing so they seem to present themselves as less equipped than, say, sonnets, to do their job --and then simultaneously deliver a message of thunderous emotional resonance. . . .Young’s poems are reason-defying but compassionate; the poems don’t alienate the reader but accommodate him.. . .For all his comedic effects, there’s some serious work being done here. Young’s work withstands and encourages such serious treatment.”
--Boston Review

“Dean Young’s poetry at once invites, repels, and surprises. . . . The scattered rush and push of ideas, the energetic narration, and the complex array of visceral images are complemented by moments of stark clarity. Incongruously realistic and surreal, frightening and funny, simple and complx, ‘Skid’ shocks us with portraits of our everyday lives.”
--Prairie Schooner