Book of Hours
Author | : Kevin Young |
Publisher | : Knopf |
Total Pages | : 209 |
Release | : 2015-10-13 |
ISBN-10 | : 9780375711886 |
ISBN-13 | : 0375711880 |
Rating | : 4/5 (880 Downloads) |
Download or read book Book of Hours written by Kevin Young and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2015-10-13 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A decade after the sudden and tragic loss of his father, we witness the unfolding of grief. “In the night I brush / my teeth with a razor,” he tells us, in one of the collection’s piercing two-line poems. Capturing the strange silence of bereavement (“Not the storm / but the calm / that slays me”), Kevin Young acknowledges, even celebrates, life’s passages, his loss transformed and tempered in a sequence about the birth of his son: in “Crowning,” he delivers what is surely one of the most powerful birth poems written by a man, describing “her face / full of fire, then groaning your face / out like a flower, blood-bloom,/ crocused into air.” Ending this book of both birth and grief, the gorgeous title sequence brings acceptance, asking “What good/are wishes if they aren’t / used up?” while understanding “How to listen / to what’s gone.” Young’s frank music speaks directly to the reader in these elemental poems, reminding us that the right words can both comfort us and enlarge our understanding of life’s mysteries.