Sound





Field of Light and Shadow is a collection of both selected and new poems by David Young, and as such cover four decades of writing. While one can point to differences over time, Young’s voice is pretty consistent throughout the years, even as he experiments somewhat (not hugely) with structure and form. The poems tend toward clarity rather than obfuscation; I can’t say I “got” everything (if there is such a thing) but I never felt at sea in any of the poems. I also, as a point of personal preference, tend to prefer poems such as Young’s which feel more substantive/concrete than some poetry that feels more like word gamesmanship (obviously, that’s an entirely subjective view).

The only section that didn’t work for me were the selected prose poems. While I liked a few and certainly highlighted some lines, as a style/form, they were my least favorite in the collection. My favorites were probably the longer poems. Not because they were qualitatively “better” than the shorter ones — on a line-by-line level I quite enjoyed both — but because the longer ones had a stronger impact due to the cumulative effect of the various segments and the sense of immersion within the poem’s viewpoint. “Nine Deaths”, about his wife’s battle with cancer, is utterly heart-breaking in its moving depiction of all the little deaths that come before the final big one. “Night Thoughts” is a long night in the backyard that move fluidly and often wondrously through memory and past poets and the natural world around the speaker.

Nature is everywhere in this collection, sharply, vividly, closely observed. Most everything is given its name, is precisely what it is in the moment. Spruce, not tree. Jay or goldfinch or waxwing, not bird. Syrian grass and sorghum. The speaker’s eye here is deeply familiar with the world around him.

Style, meanwhile, is subtle rather than flashy, a muted, effective use of language and sound and line that works without calling attention to itself. Here is a brief early example:

water lily choke the way:
rose mallows massed on the banks, around
/bends the sudden rise of ducks,
invisible bitterns…

You can hear but aren’t distracted by the repeated O of choke/rose, the K of choke/bake/ducks, the alliteration of “mallows massed” and banks/bends, the assonance of sudden/ducks or “invisible bitterns.”

Meanwhile, Young is also a deft hand at endings, which are tough to pull off consistently. I highlighted, as noted, a number of lines and passages, and looking at them I was struck by how many were closing lines. Here is just one example:

As if the light could take us unaware
when we knew least that we were what
we hoped we’d be, calm and intact;
as if the light could give us what we lacked.


Covering as I said decades of work, this is a hefty collection and like any such it will have its high and low points, but certainly the high points greatly outnumber the low ones here. As well, the high points soar while even the low points don’t drop very far at all. Recommended.

WEDNESDAYS WITH DENISE: FEBRUARY 22, 2023

Earlier this year, Knopf released a paperback/expanded edition of David Young’s Field of Light and Shadow: Selected and New Poems. The book is over 300 pages—spanning almost 60 years of writing—and a treasure trove of insight, wit, and reverence for the natural world. Congratulations, David! Here is one of my favorites:
Faux Pas

The fox paused at the field’s edge, paw raised,
looked back and switched her tail, the way
a thrush will flutter among maple leaves—
that’s when I thought of you, choosing
your words, taking your careful steps,
sleeping so restlessly.
Our distance is not so much miles
as years and memories, mine such leafy compost
I shake my head, too full of duff and humus
to get a bearing or a fix. Foxfire, that weird
by-product of wood-decay, pulses in me today . . .
And look: after the vixen left, trailing a faint rank scent,
a freight passed slowly, flatcars in mizzling rain,
some of them loaded with truck trailers, some not,
objects that no more need attention than you need
waste time upon my lurching, coupled feelings.
Go with the fox—I send a sort of blessing
as gulls lift off the reservoir and day,
a spreading bruise against the western rim,
drains January and the freshened year.