Primitive Mentor - University of Pittsburgh Press

Primitive Mentor

Dean Young's poems are as entertaining as a three-ring circus and as imaginative as a canvas by Hieronymus Bosch. He is one of the most inventive and satisfying poets writing today.

American Academy of Arts and Letters

The ninth collection for this Pulitzer Prize finalist, who remains as entertaining, imaginative and inventive as ever.

More Praise

Now nine books into his repertoire, Dean Young risks a number of easy criticisms. One of these is that his poems are simply permutations of themselves, that each maps the same territory as the last. Another more conspicuous concern is its extremity. Unabashedly surreal, his imagery and his narrative impulses can be dismissed as wacky and superfluous. More than any of his past books, 'Primitive Mentor' squelches these concerns.

Coldfront Magazine

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 (Ontario, Canada)

Table of Contents

Sample

80 Pages, 6 x 9 in.

January, 2008

isbn : 9780822959915

Series

Pitt Poetry Series

Subjects

about the author

Dean Young has published eight previous books, most recently elegy on toy piano, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and Embryoyo. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts as well as an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He teaches in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

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