First Course In Turbulence (Pitt Poetry Series) [Paperback]

Dean Young (Author), Ed Ochester (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Pitt Poetry Series | Publication Date: April 1, 1999

With rapid shifts between subject and tone, sometimes within single poems, Dean Young's latest book explores the kaleidoscopic welter of art and life. Here parody does not exclude the cri de coeur any more than seriousness excludes the joke. With surrealist volatility, these poems are the result of experiments that continue for the reader during each reading. Young moves from reworkings of creation myths, the index of the Norton Anthology of Poetry, pseudo reports and memos, collaged biographies, talking clouds, and worms, to memory, mourning, sexual playfulness, and deep sadness in the course of this turbulent book.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Dean Young’s fourth book is caffeinated, frantic. The speaker of these poems is highly attuned to the world, but utterly befuddled by it . . . Theories, conversations, books, friends, mishaps, and other minutiae blend into each other. . . The core struggle here is how one goes about assigning meaning to the arbitrary. Mythologies, once created, rush toward their inevitable collapse.”
--Boston Book Review

"In this aptly titled collection, Dean Young challenges the reader to hang on as he jigs from one poetic style to another and sets a wondrous course across a Duchampian landscape."
--Chicago Tribune

About the Author

Dean Young was born in 1955 in Columbia, Pennsylvania. He has received a fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown , a Stegner fellowship from Stanford, and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. He has published three previous books of poems, Design with X, Beloved Infidel, and Strike Anywhere, which won the Colorado Poetry Prize in 1995. Currently an associate professor at Loyola University, he splits his time between Chicago and Berkeley, California, where he lives with his wife, fiction writer Cornelia Nixon.

Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press; 1 edition (April 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822956977
• ISBN-13: 978-0822956976
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #611,347 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The sexiest dork around, December 19, 1999

By 

Mr Reed - See all my reviews

This review is from: First Course In Turbulence (Pitt Poetry Series) (Paperback)

Dean Young is becoming one of the most dazzling poets writing. First Course in Turbulence is not only Young's best book, but one of the best poetry books of the year. He has the ability to convey simple human truths in delightful--humorous, wacky, bizarre--ways. He works by association, and he works quickly, providing his readers with a wild and utterly thrilling ride.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Duchamp of Poetry, May 19, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: First Course In Turbulence (Pitt Poetry Series) (Paperback)

For a few books now Young has been steadily traveling the highway of surrealism. "In First Course in Turbulence" though, Young's wheels hop from the highway and into the stars. This book is wild and associative, beautifully illogical. What Young creates for me is way beyond surreal-- its Duchampish, Dadaistic as he teases and resists, reshapes the senses.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great discovery, April 7, 2000

By 

Tracy Jones - See all my reviews

This review is from: First Course In Turbulence (Pitt Poetry Series) (Paperback)

Reading Dean Young for the first time, I felt the way I felt upon discovering William Matthews or James Tate. Young is a major new poet, one who uses language and stream-of-consciousness in consistently interesting ways.