In Elegy on Toy Piano, Dean Young's sixth book of poems, elegiac necessity finds itself next to goofy celebration. Daffy Duck enters the Valley of the Eternals. Faulkner and bell-bottoms cling to beauty's evanescence. Even in single poems, Young's tone and style vary. No one feeling or idea takes precedence over another, and their simultaneity is frequently revealed; sadness may throw a squirrelly shadow, joy can find itself dressed in mourning black. As in the agitated \u0022Whirlpool Suite\u0022: \u0022Pain / and pleasure are two signals carried / over one phoneline.\u0022 In taking up subjects as slight as the examination of a signature or a true/false test, and as pressing as the death of friends, Young's poems embrace the duplicity of feeling, the malleability of perception, and the truth telling of wordplay.

Author: Dean Young
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Published: 01/28/2005
Series: Pitt Poetry
Pages: 90
Weight: 0.34lbs
Size: 8.36h x 5.30w x 0.32d
ISBN: 9780822958727


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 01/24/2005 pg. 236

About the Author
Dean Young has published several books of poetry, including his 2005 collection, Elegy on Toy Piano, afinalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. His collection Skid was a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Prize. Young has received two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship. He teaches at The Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa and in the Warren Wilson Low Residency Program.