The Day Underneath the Day

Rating:
Summary: A Poet's Poet
Review: I am late coming to this book, but recently a friend of mine heard Young read at a writer's conference and recommended I check it out. It is a beautiful book. As a poet myself trying to get a book published, reading this book made me realize that the bar can be quite high. What I admired most in these poems is the quiet and restrained voice. It is that "voice" that allows Young to make bold assertions, not just of vision, but of feeling. Young does sometimes skirt the sentimental, but I don't believe he ever crosses the line into sentimentality. There is always just enough self-doubt and self-loathing, if you can call it that, that saves these poems from sentimentality. In arguably one of his best poems, "On Privilege," he gives us a scene of incredible splendor. It is unfair to compare him to Derek Walcott, but we have few others who have written about the Caribbean. "On Privilege" is filled with the kind of breath-taking detail we know from Walcott's work, but this poem also holds a disturbing relationship between the speaker and his family, between the speaker and the very scene he describes.

The closing section of the book is by far the most formidable section of the book. It is filled with the tensions of artistry vs. history, a colonial history of oppression and destruction. But many of the themes in this section start in the preceding two sections of the book: the inability to love; the inability to trust the world and what it gives; the precise vision that sees more than what is usually seen by the ordinary eye. This book isn't for everyone who likes and reads poetry. In the end, Young is a poet's poet. And this poet is grateful he found time to write this book.

Rating:
Summary: A Poet's Poet
Review: I have to say that this is the one truly bad book of poems I've read in the past year. Not mediocre, not disappointing, but actively bad; a lyricism lapsing everywhere into the sentimental, trite emotion (and emotionalism), formal sloppiness and an absolute lack of originality. Most of these poems--and the images they contain--look like first drafts, the first things that would occur to a not-especially talented MFA student, and all travel ground that at this point in the history of American poetry has been traveled a million times already.

To me, this is a fairly obvious example of someone parlaying editorship of a well-known magazine into book publication. That it got published is in itself astounding, and that it's praised (even compared to Wallace Stevens's Harmonium) is a sad commentary on our poetic culture.

Rating:
Summary: Confident and Masterful Verse
Review: People here have already mentioned the visual nature of Young's poetry, but his work is much more complex than that. He is as much a master of mood and tone as he is of the visual. The third section of this book, which deals with the Caribbean and its history, is one of the most incredible mix of poems I have seen in years. These are among the best poems I have seen in magazines in the past few years and, when taken altogether, are simply amazing. This may be a first book, but these poems don't seem like poems you find in a first book at all. The confidence displayed in this collection is the confidence one earns after years and years of writing. This is definitely a poet to watch in the future.

Rating:
Summary: Incredible Book of Poems
Review: The precision of imagery in this book is awe-inspiring. That this is Young's first book is even more awe-inspiring. In a time when so much of the poetry out there seems simple and flat, what a treat to find a volume of real poetry. A friend of mine sent me this book, and I am very grateful to her for introducing me to this poet's work. After reading this, many will find it difficult not to pay more attention to the natural world around them. Young's eyes not only catch the minute details of the world, he knows how to make you see them as well.

Rating:
Summary: Simply Gorgeous
Review: There seems to have been a good number of first collections of poetry published this year, and the generation of poets coming into being is certainly a strong one. Young, in particular, is a traditionalist in terms of approach, but these poems are by no means old-fashioned. They are concerned with family relationships (between child and parent; between men; between friends, etc.), the difficulty of making art true, and the colonial experiment in the Caribbean. I agree with many who have already pointed out his command of visual particulars. More than many in his generation, Young seems to almost paint with words and relies on the images he generates to make his arguments. It isn't that he is less concerned with language but that he uses language to make his points via image. A very beautiful book anyone interested in poetry should read.