Primitive Mentor (Pitt Poetry Series) [Paperback]

Dean Young (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The prolific Young (Embryoyo) sometimes seems a creature of mere whimsy, spinning provocative sentences almost at random, one after another; at other times he's a dynamo of invention, whose ceaseless changes of mood and topics, absurd connections between incompatible tones, explicitly sexual energies and underlying unease more than justify his recent prominence and his obvious influence over so many younger American poets. Between its postsurrealist comic claims (In the desert I feel like I'm made/ entirely of broccoli) and its fun with shock value (We sniff glue./ I have a medium-sized White House in my sperm), this ninth book will certainly please fans. Yet the volume also finds Young reaching more often for pathos and earnest representations of pain. One of the best poems begins, Shouldn't someone have run for help by now? Another begins, You must be careful eating thorns. The moments of lament (evoking, at times, Wallace Stevens) allow Young to slow the book down, to make not only a poetry to caricature our contemporary culture (suffused as we are with so much information) but also a verse suffused with halting regret: these saddest of Young's poems might even bring prior doubters into his fold. (Feb.)
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Review

“Dean Young's poems are as entertaining as a three-ring circus and as imaginative as a canvas by Hieronymous Bosch. He is one of the most inventive and satisfying poets writing today.”
—American Academy of Arts and Letters

“Now nine books into his repertoire, Dean Young risks a number of easy criticisms. One of these is that his poems are simply permutations of themselves, that each maps the same territory as the last. Another more conspicuous concern is its extremity. Unabashedly surreal, his imagery and his narrative  impulses can be dismissed as wacky and superfluous. More than any of his past books, ‘Primitive Mentor’ squelches these concerns.”
—Coldfront Magazine

“In Young’s work, the big essential questions--mortality, identity, the meaning of life--aren’t simply food for thought; they’re grounds for entertainment.”
—The Sunday Star (Ontario, Canada)

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Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press (January 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822959917
• ISBN-13: 978-0822959915
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,159,017 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Young traps himself in his limited range., December 27, 2008

By 

Pietro "Pietro Da Cortona" (Pietro Da Cortona) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Primitive Mentor (Pitt Poetry Series) (Paperback)

This book was pretty good, despite what one reviewer wrote earlier. However, the problem with this book is that Young's style, that unpredictablity of where lines are going and coming from gives the reader little to savor. After reading this book I felt as if the whole thing ran straight through me and I was left with no memorable moments. Make no mistake though, Young's poems are refreshing. His style is reminiscent of the improvisatory poems of Koch, Goldbarth, and even the beats to an extent. He exceeds Koch's mediocre works and Goldbarth's pieces in "The Kitchen Sink," but his style begins to wear after you read through 10 or so poems. The syntax just slides down the page and the attention falls with it. It begins to feel too much like half-riffs rather than a cohesive melody... even disjunctive. Pitt. Poetry series is a good series and tends toward the "anti-academic" strain of a Bob Hicok (who is a professor BTW) and Dean Young, the Pitt series is worth checking out if you are tired of the pretentiousness of heavily "academic" poems (ironically it is a college press???).

I do recommend this book if you like whimsical and perhaps coy approaches to poetics. But for Young's poetry it must be remembered that some kinds of poetry you have to hear like a live concert where there is more energy and more mistakes, instead of a studio album that has been rehearsed to death.

-Pietro

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A five star review just to balance out Glint Masser, November 12, 2008

By 

James Rathbun (Portland, ME) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Primitive Mentor (Pitt Poetry Series) (Paperback)

To Glint,
Dean Young is generally, if not exclusively, a brilliant poet and to give one star to anything he's done strikes me as a rather misleading review. To give five stars to this particular collection may not be appropriate either but at least it balances out your rating. Incidentally, I'll assume you meant aberration, I'm unsure who you were quoting when you quoted work and, though it may go without saying, I don't put much stock in your review.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars my thoughts, May 4, 2010

By 

Alex J. Skowronski "monkeyboy" (toledo,oh) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Primitive Mentor (Pitt Poetry Series) (Paperback)

This was a very good read. Most all his poems posed some question about his life's events. "MY Outlook on Life" had a reference to the story of Adam and Eve; others of his poems also had Biblical references. His poetry is very deep and thought provoking. If he isn't posing a question directly, he is leaving the reader questioning the topic of his poems. his poetry has no real rhyme but it does have a certain structure and form. His visions are well thought out and he asks questions without asking. Overall this is a good read for anyone that likes the challenge of good poetry and being left with questions about their own life after each poem they read.