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The Art of Recklessness: Poetry as Assertive Force and Contradiction
by
Dean Young
In Dean Young’s sprawling and subversive first book of prose on poetry, imagination swerves into primitivism and surrealism and finally toward empathy. How can recklessness guide the poet, the artist, and the reader into art, and how can it excite in us a sort of wild receptivity, beyond craft? “Poetry is not a discipline,” Young writes. “It is a hunger, a revolt, a drive,...more
Paperback, 167 pages
Published
July 20th 2010
by Graywolf Press
(first published 2010)
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Recommended manifesto re: primitivism, Navajo poems, Romanticism, Rimbaud, Duchamp, Dada, Surrealism, the radioactive core of inspired work, on and on. Covers too much ground to summarize. Formal swerve matches content (see also On Being Blue: A Philosophical Inquiry by William Gass). Wonderfully composed, inspiring, affirming of life and art, even if it sometimes seems intentionally excessively overecstatic/associative. Too many page corners turned down to count. More LOLs than expected for som...more
This is not the kind of book you breeze through, despite it's diminutive size. I started and stopped it several times since receiving it in First Reads, and it has lived on the nightstand for months. Finally I just tossed it into my bag to read when time became available throughout the day.(Here is where the small size comes in handy.) I'm about to read it again with a highlighter handy and will be adding more detail to this review, but in the meantime I highly recommend it to anyone who loves p...more
"The Art of" Series is edited by Charles Baxter. I found this book fascinating--it articulated Young's aesthetic and pedagogy in a way that I found both interesting and helpful (he's my professor!) It also intersected nicely with a class I am taking now which deals with a lot of Surreal and Modern texts--Young gives brief histories of Romanticism, Dadaism, Surrealism, and Modernism, and talks about how these schools unfolded. Young has been described as both a "new" New York School poet and also...more
Young’s assertion that poetry “is no more a thing than fire is; rather it is a conversion that reveals itself in the instance of its occasion.” aligns with my own ideas. He uses many examples from art to illustrate how poetry evolves, suggests and rebels against its predecessors. He contradicts himself slightly in arguing that poetry is not craft, but later stating that it’s imperative for the poet to detach himself from the work “to see poems as things, material to be manipulated.” He acknowled...more
The Art of Rec kles sn ess examines primitivism, surrealism and the “wild receptivity” of imagination that excites something beyond craft and draws us near to empathy. Young emphasizes the fact that being human, we are not “equations with hats”, nor is it necessarily beneficial to hold our words on long leashes so that they describe what we perceive. Don’t be fooled by the word, “Reckless” in the title, as imagination has its own clarity. Rather, the etymology, which stems from Old English, recc...more
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...more
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...more
And later: “Meaningless results not from too little but too much meaning” (p 91).
One of the great things about...more
I’ve always sworn that the day I actually use the cliché designation ‘a tour de force’ is the day I should stop writing reviews, but I can honestly say that phrase, at its most genuine sentiment, is what needs to be bannered across the cover of this book, practically as a genre all its own.
I should admit some bias here--as a young poet directly in the middle of earning the degree everyone and their grandmother has an opinion on, the MFA, this book felt almost supernaturally conscious of me and m...more
I should admit some bias here--as a young poet directly in the middle of earning the degree everyone and their grandmother has an opinion on, the MFA, this book felt almost supernaturally conscious of me and m...more
Not a quick or an easy read. Not a craft book — more of an anti-craft book. I've gotten lost more than once. Another reviewer said dense, passionate, and reckless. I concur. It's a book to go back to again and again, is maybe best taken in small doses. Read a little. Think. Then maybe, think again.
It's a lot about opening up, disrupting expectations, being a little crazy, goofy, unruly. It's about accessing the primitive, the primary ground. In Young's words, "Let us get better at not knowing w...more
It's a lot about opening up, disrupting expectations, being a little crazy, goofy, unruly. It's about accessing the primitive, the primary ground. In Young's words, "Let us get better at not knowing w...more
Good!
At first I thought it was just too weird—is it an essay? A meditation? A diatribe? Or poetry?—and was frustrated at times by the metaphysical and abstract bent of his writing in the beginning, but after finishing the book, I must say I enjoyed what the book has to say about the creative process, the imagination, and poetry (or any creative work for that matter). The weird style in which it's written, too, is just another "reckless" way the author challenges convention and his writing is ass...more
At first I thought it was just too weird—is it an essay? A meditation? A diatribe? Or poetry?—and was frustrated at times by the metaphysical and abstract bent of his writing in the beginning, but after finishing the book, I must say I enjoyed what the book has to say about the creative process, the imagination, and poetry (or any creative work for that matter). The weird style in which it's written, too, is just another "reckless" way the author challenges convention and his writing is ass...more
This book, which, in genre is closest to a long essay about poetry, was really good for me. At times Young wanders (and the whole thing is a wonder/wander) to topics that bored me, but the concept of letting recklessness drive my art is something I need to incorporate in order to make the next step in my progress. Young's own work is a great example of the freshness and electricity that recklessness can bring to poetry, though I sometimes feel his work could use a little more craft (revision?) o...more
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I'm not sure this is a full five stars, but everything after
"STANZA BREAK" was brilliant and the whole thing is so in line with how I view poetry that I'm looking past the jumbled beginning.
I can't really blame people if they gave up on this. The lack of focus from the get-go could be hard to push through. Young's use of ALL CAPS FOR MINOR STATEMENTS comes off as shouting and his challenge to the reader on page 14 to close the book if you don't agree with him really annoys.
If you stick around,...more
"STANZA BREAK" was brilliant and the whole thing is so in line with how I view poetry that I'm looking past the jumbled beginning.
I can't really blame people if they gave up on this. The lack of focus from the get-go could be hard to push through. Young's use of ALL CAPS FOR MINOR STATEMENTS comes off as shouting and his challenge to the reader on page 14 to close the book if you don't agree with him really annoys.
If you stick around,...more
Compelling read on poetic Surrealism. Borderline discursive and heady; found myself glazing over some paragraphs, but by the end I discovered that I am more attracted to the theory of surrealism than surrealist art: a resurrection of the imaginative subject. A childlike marveling at the world. An undefined relationship between self and other, subject and object. A questioning of reality, an abandonment of comfort. Creative play.
Unlike the other "Art of" poetry books, this one reads less like a craft book and more like a manifesto. If you already know a lot about the Surrealist and Dada movements, you might get bored. But I read this as a way of jumpstarting my own writing, and it seems to have served its purpose. I underlined a lot of phrases and dog-eared a lot of pages.
This is one of the best current books I've read on the practice of writing poetry. Young's comments on the relationship of Surrealism and poetry are great. I can't list a page number above because I find myself randomly leaping into different sections of the book as I write. Decidedly a must-have for any contemporary poet.
This is one crazy poetics/criticism book.
Young lost me a few times, but it was still a lot of fun to read. I underlined quite a bit. I loved the discussion on Hamlet. If you're really, really into poetry, I'd pick this up. It's not very long, but it's kind of all over the place. It's dense, it's certainly passionate and reckless (for lack of a better word).
Young lost me a few times, but it was still a lot of fun to read. I underlined quite a bit. I loved the discussion on Hamlet. If you're really, really into poetry, I'd pick this up. It's not very long, but it's kind of all over the place. It's dense, it's certainly passionate and reckless (for lack of a better word).
This is blowing my mind once per page. Overall, it's about poetry, but Dean Young jumps around discussing topics as varied as: primitive art, dada, Gertrude Stein, Rimbaud, otherness, sex, craft, Ezra Pound, disruption, Picasso... in a way that makes it easy to understand the connection between those things. For instance, I'd never considered how WWI led to Dada which led to Surrealism. This book contains the most insightful explanation of Surrealism that I've read. It's obvious that Young is re...more
One of the best books I have ever read on the necessary dangers and subsequent thrills of the creative process - far ranging in its references and profoundly insightful. It is also blessedly funny in all the right places!
A small, gripping book (in the “The Art of” series from Graywolf Press) about the forces colliding in the urge to write poetry, about poetry’s purpose in the world, the poet’s gift, etc. Illuminating (actual poems and poets are discussed) and inspirational, with the occasional capitalized declaration: “Some people try to convince you poetry is so important you have no business trying to write it without severe indoctrination. But POETRY CAN’T BE HARMED BY PEOPLE TRYING TO WRITE IT!”
I love his voice. I can listen to anything and everything he has to say about poetry. It's nice to discover that in this post-post-post modern world somebody still believes that one can mingle humor with intellectual assertion.
Young's book is yet another one that requires time and attention. I loved it; I think I quoted Young for at least three weeks straight. I know I underlined almost the entire book. It's one I plan to re-read.
One of the best "craft" books available that captures the adventure of voice. The entire "Art of..." series deserves a place on every writers bookshelf.
Not good. No room for breathing. Limited view on poetry.
See: http://1hundred1.blogspot.com/2011/08...
See: http://1hundred1.blogspot.com/2011/08...
This is an helpful guide and discussion on poetry writing and surrealism. Very Very Very helpful to me.
So pretentious, I started out agreeing with the premise and ended up DISAGREEING with it.
Oh my God! Read it--start anywhere.
Rambling and unfocused
I read The Art of Recklessness at the recommendation of a professor, and while I can't say my views align with Young's all the time (or, hell, even most of the time), I'm glad to have read it. Though short, the book is dense and takes some unpacking, and Young's ideas are worth the time it takes to work through them. Parts of the book felt truly freeing, and for that, I'm thankful. Though I wouldn't recommend this to every poet or reader of poetry, I know it would certainly work for some.
3.5
Young just had to prove his point. He was probably drunk and drugged the whole way through, his reckless writing increasingly irritating, which was perhaps the point. I dunno. I wanted to like this guy, this book because of his first and last few pages, which were manic yes, but more focused, which proved that he could. But there was just too much Surrealism, too much Dada, and too much nonsense in the middle that the incredible parts were almost not worth it.
Young just had to prove his point. He was probably drunk and drugged the whole way through, his reckless writing increasingly irritating, which was perhaps the point. I dunno. I wanted to like this guy, this book because of his first and last few pages, which were manic yes, but more focused, which proved that he could. But there was just too much Surrealism, too much Dada, and too much nonsense in the middle that the incredible parts were almost not worth it.
"Quaintness may be the worst that can happen to an art, its fire replaced by a lava lamp" (8). Well said, sir.
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I don't know why I pulled this book off my shelf, I'm just glad I did. Comps Weekend is in three weeks and I will be referencing this work in the poetics/theory part, for sure. I love you, Dean Young, for writing this book. Whenever I see you walk by me in your leather jacket at AWP I will send you thankful, energetic mind-vibes.
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I don't know why I pulled this book off my shelf, I'm just glad I did. Comps Weekend is in three weeks and I will be referencing this work in the poetics/theory part, for sure. I love you, Dean Young, for writing this book. Whenever I see you walk by me in your leather jacket at AWP I will send you thankful, energetic mind-vibes.
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Dean Young is a contemporary American poet in the poetic lineage of John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, and Kenneth Koch. Though often cited as a second-generation New York School poet, his work also resonates with the Surrealist poetry of Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, and Guillaume Apollinaire, and if neo-surrealism has a poetic corollary then it is him. His most recent books are Elegy on Toy Piano...more
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“Poets are excellent students of blizzards and salt and broken statuary, but they are always elsewhere for the test. Any intention in the writing of poetry besides the aim to make a poem, of engaging the materials, SHOULD be disappointed. If the poet does not have the chutzpah to jeopardize habituated assumptions and practices, what will be produced will be sleep without dream, a copy of a copy of a copy.”
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“Poetry is not efficient. If you want to learn how to cook a lobster, it’s probably best not to look to poetry. But if you want to see the word lobster in all its reactant oddity, its pied beauty, as if for the first time, go to poetry. And if you want to know what it’s like to be that lobster in the pot, that’s in poetry too.”
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4 people liked it
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