Four Way Books, 2021 eISBN: 978-1-945588-82-2 | Paper: 978-1-945588-70-9 Library of Congress Classification PS3625.O96P76 2021 Dewey Decimal Classification 811.6
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS
ABOUT THIS BOOK
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 BIOGRAPHY
C. 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.
"...Young, the poet (and radiation oncologist) has mastered language in this finely wrought new volume. Continuing a tradition from previous books like The Second Person, Young’s narrators have inherited languages of religion and desire, and they intertwine in their ecstasy....An excellent book." – Nick Ripatrazone, The Millions
"...Young powerfully maneuvers through complex issues of multiethnicity and heritage in direct poetic language, inviting readers to immerse themselves in the many truths his collection reveals." –Publishers Weekly