Vol. I No. III |
March
2000
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The
Danforth Review
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The Island in Winter Review by Michael Bryson
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The Island in Winter brings to life Terence Young's tragic, tender voice. The poems are often elegies. The subjects include the narrator's late father, lost relationships, childhood, and simple innocense. These are poems about the process of maturing, the process of coming to terms with life. From "Grip":
Young's language is simple and direct. His strongest effects leverage the depth of his honesty, his courage to confront the deeper currents of life. The poems do not reach for pyrotechnics, nor do they attempt the false "realism" of too many over earnest, over gritty would-be Buksowskis. If there is magic in his garden (and there is), it comes from a close examination of life's common dramas. For example, from "Letters to an Absent Wife":
Here, as in many of Young's poems, his narrative strategy is to place the reader in common territory (a love triangle), then to spin off metaphors and observations. The poem reaches from the mundane (fallen apples) to the cosmic (the speed of the universe), knitting together an experience which is both transcendent and grounding. The poems in this collection both resonate with depth and reach for the stars.
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THE DANFORTH REVIEW IS EDITED BY MICHAEL BRYSON. |