Dean Young (poet)



Dean Young (born 1955) is a contemporary American poet in the poetic lineage of John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, and Kenneth Koch. Often cited as a second-generation New York School poet, Young also derives influence and inspiration from the work of André Breton, Paul Éluard, and the other French Surrealist poets, and if neo-surrealism has a poetic corollary then it is him. His most recent books are Bender: New and Selected Poems, Fall Higher and The Art of Recklessness. Another work, Elegy on Toy Piano (2005), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

In the past, he has been awarded the Colorado Prize for Poetry for Strike Anywhere, has received a Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, and has been awarded fellowships by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2002) as well as from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. His work has been included in The Best American Poetry anthology multiple times, dating back to 1993. He was born in Columbia, Pennsylvania.

In an interview, Young said his poems are about misunderstanding and that tying meaning too closely with understanding is not the intent of his poetry. He finds the process of creation to be more important than the work itself, and that his poems are more demonstrations than explanations. He also finds that using mangled quotes from technical journals, as he experimented with in First Course in Turbulence, allows for a kind of collage in which tones confront each other. Citing Breton as a major influence, Young finds Surrealism useful in understanding the imagination and removing the boundaries between real and unreal.

In 2008, Young became the William Livingston Chair of Poetry at the University of Texas at Austin.

Books

 * Design with X (1988)
 * Beloved Infidel (1992) Originally published by Wesleyan University Press.
 * Strike Anywhere (1995)
 * First Course in Turbulence (1999)
 * Skid (2002)
 * Elegy on Toy Piano (2005)
 * Embryoyo (2007)
 * Primitive Mentor (2008) (shortlisted for the 2009 International Griffin Poetry Prize)
 * 7 Poets, 4 Days, 1 Book (Trinity University Press, 2009).
 * The Foggist (2009)
 * The Art of Recklessness (2010)
 * Fall Higher (Copper Canyon Press, 2011)
 * ''Bender: New and Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2012)

Magazines and anthologies

 * The Best American Poetry 1997 – link
 * The Best American Poetry 2000 – link
 * The Best American Poetry 2001 – link
 * The Best American Poetry 2006 – link
 * The Believer, February 2008
 * The Best American Poetry 2008 – link
 * The Best American Poetry 2010

Poems online

 * PoemHunter.com - Some poems by Dean Young.
 * Ode to Hangover - text and audio file of Young reading the poem aloud.
 * Poem Without Forgiveness from the Paris Review
 * The Business of Love is Cruelty poem by Dean Young
 * Three poems from Jacket Magazine
 * Exit Ovidian, poem from Boston Review
 * Flood Plain, poem from Pool Magazine
 * Acceptance Speech, from Poetry Magazine
 * About
 * Griffin Poetry Prize biography, including video clip of reading of Dean Young poem
 * Poets.org - A brief biography.
 * PoetryFoundation.org - A very brief biography with links to several poems.
 * excerpt from interview in Jubilat
 * University of Texas faculty profile
 * - Dean Young needs a heart transplant (donate)
 * - Dean Young needs a heart transplant (donate)