“Dean Young's poems are as entertaining as a three-ring circus and as imaginative as a canvas by Hieronymous Bosch. He is one of the most inventive and satisfying poets writing today.”
—American Academy of Arts and Letters

“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)