Shock by Shock

"[In Shock by Shock] Young retains his considerable charms: a generous, tragicomic spirit, a guileless love of rhyme, and an acrobatic sense of logic and image." —Publishers Weekly

"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

"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

Dean Young escorts his transplanted heart into invigorating poetic territory that combines the joy of being alive with his signature mixture of surrealism, humor, and fast-cut imagery. A Pulitzer finalist known for his hard-won insights, NPR said it best when they observed that Young sees "even in the smallest things the heights of what we can be."

From "Light Bringers":

Once my mother was a child playing
a child’s violin then they used a motorized

crank to lower her in and the ground covered
itself like a mouth filling with wildflowers.

Then snow and whatever was left alive
burrowed deeper. Maybe a river meanders
because it knows its destination.

Dean Young has published eleven books of poetry, including finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and Griffin Award. He is the William Livingston Chair of Poetry at the University of Texas and lives in Austin.