Links to Share to Help Poet Dean Young

I've just learned that a favorite poet of mine, Dean Young, is in need of a heart transplant.  I learned of Dean's work in 2002 when I bought this book, Skid (Pitt Poetry Series) and loved it.  I've never met him in person or heard him read, but it's funny how you feel close to poets whose books you love.

Needing (and asking) for help can be tough to do, but his friend, poet Tony Hoagland (author of What Narcissism Means to Me and Donkey Gospel) wrote a heartfelt letter for Dean sharing what we can do to help if you'd like to know more: click on this link.

And then I learned of this blog, by Dean Young's nephew, Seth Pollins.  Another touching letter and info on where to write Dean directly if you feel so inclined.

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I don't have much to add to this, but just wanted to share the info with you if you haven't heard.  And to share a poem by Dean Young, from the Poetry Foundation:

Dear Friend

What will be served for our reception

in the devastation? Finger food, of course

and white wine, something printed on the napkins.

We were not children together

but we are now. Every bird knows

only two notes constantly rearranged.

That’s called forever so we wear pajamas

to the practice funeral, buckeroos

to the end. We make paper hats

of headlines and float them away.

My home made of smoke,

tiny spider made of punctuation,

my favorite poem is cinder

scratched into a sidewalk.

My friend’s becoming the simplest man,

he sees a lesson in everything,

in missing his train,

in his son hollering from the first branch,

Dad, guess where I am.

I was with him for my first magpies,

governmental and acting like hell.

And the new nickel

with Washington hard to recognize.

We’d driven by a Rabbit flattened

by an upset truck, jars of Miracle Whip

broken over the toll road in heavy snow.

We watched an old lady

eat a hot dog in a bun

with a knife and fork.

A few emeralds winged off

a fruit leaf.

What happens when your head splits open

and the bird flies out, its two notes deranged?

You got better, I got better,

wildflowers rimmed the crater,

glitter glitter glitter.

We knew someone whose father died

then we knew ourselves.

Astronomer, gladiator,

thief, a tombstone salesman.

All our vacations went to the sea

that breathed two times a day

without a machine.

We got in trouble with a raft

doing what we promised not to.

Further out to be brought further back.

There’s my friend in his squashed hat

trying to determine if a dot

is a living thing and do no harm.

He’s having trouble remembering street names

but there’s still plenty of Thoreau.

All that a human is made of is gold,

very very little gold.

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