An unflinching reckoning with the traumas of one's life and those inherited through a history of exacted injustices "Some men find nothing, and others /...
An unflinching reckoning with the traumas of one's life and those inherited through a history of exacted injustices "Some men find nothing, and others / find omens everywhere," writes C. Dale Young in
Prometeo, a collection whose speaker is a proverbial "child of fire." In poems that thrive off of their distinct voice, the speaker confronts generational and lived trauma and their relationship to his multi-ethnicity. We are presented with the idea of the past's burial in the body and its constellatory manifestations--both in the speaker and those around him--in disease and pain, but also in strength and a capacity for intimacy with others and nature. Grounded in precise language, Young's examination of the past and its injuries turns into a celebration of the self. In stark, exuberant relief, the speaker proclaims "...I was splendidly blended, genetically engineered / for survival." Resilient, Young's poems find beauty in landscape, science, and meditation.
Author: C. Dale Young
Publisher: Four Way Books
Published: 02/15/2021
Pages: 76
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.31lbs
Size: 8.80h x 6.00w x 0.30d
ISBN: 9781945588709
Review Citation(s): Publishers Weekly 02/15/2021
About the AuthorC. Dale Young practices medicine full-time. He is the author, with Four Way Books, of
The Affliction (2018), a novel in stories, and the poetry collections
The Second Person (2007), a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Poetry;
Torn (2011), named one of the best poetry collections of 2011 by National Public Radio, and
The Halo (2016). He is a previous recipient of the Grolier Prize, the Stanley W. Lindberg Award for Literary Editing, and the 2017/2018 Hanes Award in Poetry given by the Fellowship of Southern Writers to honor a poet at mid-career. A Fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation, his poems and short fiction have appeared widely. He lives in San Francisco.
