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The Art Of Recklessness: Poetry As Assertive Force And Contradiction (2010)

by Dean Young(Favorite Author)

4.19 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1555975623 (ISBN13: 9781555975623)

languge

English

genre

Poetry

publisher

Graywolf Press

review 1: The Art of Recklessness by Dean Young is a breath of fresh air for any who read books about the art of poetry or the craft thereof. The portable book offers some wonderful advice to any writer. One I enjoyed: “At every moment the poet must be ready to abandon any prior intention in welcome expectation of what the poem is beginning to signal. More than intending, the poet ATTENDS!” (p 4)And later: “Meaningless results not from too little but too much meaning” (p 91).One of the great things about this book, and its writer, is that Young makes it clear that the writer at many times in the process of writing must let go and enjoy the act of creation through writing, and not to get hung up on too many rules (although he asserts throughout that certain rules do indeed di... morectate the craft), but to allow the message to flow through unfiltered and for the writer not to wheedle the message or the art/craft too much that it becomes stale, boring, unoriginal. Originality is clearly one message the book promotes. The other message is Surrealism and how it can be achieved and its usefulness, and necessity among the current art forms (or genres) of writing, and how surrealism (authentic surrealism) to often abandoned and disrespected far too quickly.“If there is divinity in us,” writes Young, “it is in the process of allowing ourselves to unmake and remake ourselves” (p 125).The reader will not be disappointed with this guide to recklessness, for all its sage and witty remarks make this an insightful and pleasurable read. A strong recommend for those who read craft workbooks.
review 2: Another hit in the extending line of "The Art of..." books, edited by Charles Baxter and published by Graywolf Press, poet Dean Young's prose is as reckless as his subject -- the recklessness of poetry itself. Tacking back and forth over a significant sea of information, art and literature (including a wonderful tangent on Hamlet) Young explores the contradictions and subjectivities in poetry -- all poetry, not just the contemporary poetry Young writes and for which he makes a case. Touching on the Romantics, Surrealists and Dadaists, Young shows how poets leap into contradiction, smashing associations seemingly codified in the language itself. Recklessness, fearlessness and assertiveness in the service of the poetry and the poet is the subject and the charge here, and Young's exploration, chaotic digressions and all, is intense, erudite and passionate. His winsome, collegial tone carries us through even the most disarming comment or distant allusion. less

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