Skid, Dean Young. Pittsburg, PA: University of Pittsburg Press, 2002. $12.95. 0-8229-5780-9

How to describe Dean Young? Of this 100 page (give or take) collection, I marked about half either because they struck me so powerfully, I ran to write something of my own, or they infuriated me with their obtuseness. But don’t get me wrong—I love games. I studied under a man whose license plate read “Zembla”, mind you. (He drove a Volvo.)

The poems in this collection are charged with a tension uncharacteristic for Young. There is danger in here; it’s not all games and stand-up. There are lines that grab like hidden claws amidst the cacophony—actually, to answer my own question, I would compare reading Dean Young to listening to an early Sonic Youth album (see: frustration/excitement, above). There is a definite, thrilling intensity that arrows me to the core, and part of that is, of course, the strangeness. Young makes his own world, self-referential, peopled by kindly people I’d like to meet, though some of them may well be baby-eaters. These people suffer and die ridiculously. They are gloriously and pathetically human.

I’ve also marked about fifty lines to quote, here. Lines like: “You can’t have it back, says the fire/affectionately. You never needed it/ anyway, promises the Earth.” Or "You know not to hit the brakes on ice / but do anyway. You bend the nail / but keep hammering because / hammering makes the world." But this would end up like an annoying trailer. So, I will simply end with a line from “Whale Watch”(a masterpiece): “There is so much to say and shut up about.”

I like Dean Young.

-CL Bledsoe