{"id":3103,"date":"2013-08-27T19:17:05","date_gmt":"2013-08-27T19:17:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/?page_id=3103"},"modified":"2022-12-22T12:31:58","modified_gmt":"2022-12-22T17:31:58","slug":"torn","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/torn\/","title":{"rendered":"Torn"},"content":{"rendered":"

[column col=”1\/4″]\"Torn<\/a><\/p>\n

paper \u2022 100 pages \u2022 15.95
\nISBN-13:\u00a0978-1-935536-06-2<\/p>\n

Add to Cart<\/a><\/p>\n

[\/column]<\/p>\n

Torn<\/em><\/h1>\n

C. Dale Young<\/h2>\n

In Torn<\/em>, his third collection, poet and doctor C. Dale Young continues his investigations into the human,\u00a0depicted here as both spiritual being and as biological instrument, as both \u201cthe soul and its attendant\u00a0concerns\u201d and as a device that \u201crequires charge, small \/ electrical impulses \/ racing through our bodies.\u201d\u00a0\u201cIn many ways \/ we are all conductors,\u201d Young writes, his graceful pun a reminder of the way poetry is\u00a0\u201cthis song I can barely hum over the wind.\u201d In the beautiful \u201cWindows,\u201d the departing terminus of the\u00a0collection, Young also situates poetry as an art that tells through visual means: \u201cThe story isn\u2019t a\u00a0difficult one to start, the way \/\/ a painter, after collecting many images, \/ approaches the canvas with\u00a0something akin \/ to longing or need.\u201d What is difficult, though, are the subjects of those images\u2014and\u00a0the challenges they pose for us.<\/p>\n

Indeed, what Young tells and shows us, what his poems let us hear, does not aim to reassure or soothe.\u00a0These are poems written from \u201cwhite and yellow scraps \/ covered with words and words and more\u00a0words\u2014 \/\/ I may never find the right words to describe this.\u201d These sure-footed tercets register a\u00a0struggle to understand the spiritual and the human, to come to terms with a religion which has \u201c5,040\u00a0prerequisites for heaven\u201d and a society that offers to label us, that requires we \u201cOnly use gender neutral\u00a0when you must talk \/ about your beloved.\u201d Torn<\/em> concludes with its title poem, in which the speaker\u00a0slowly, tenderly, sutures the face of a boy beaten for his sexuality. Here the speaker practices the\u00a0healing arts aware of the failure written into their fruition: \u201cstitch after stitch, the slender exactness of\u00a0my fingers \/ attempted perfection.\u201d This failure, Torn<\/em> reminds us, makes us human: the doctor failing to\u00a0treat his patients, the teacher failing to see her student as anything but a racial stereotype, the\u00a0homophobe failing to see how \u201cit was beautiful, that kiss\u201d between two lovers on an Italian beach.\u00a0Torn<\/em> is an essential collection by a poet who\u2019s mastered his craft\u2014as healer, as teacher, as writer\u2014enough to know it\u2019s always mastered him.<\/p>\n

from \u201cTorn\u201d:<\/p>\n

There was the knife and the broken syringe
\nthen the needle in my hand, the Tru-Cut
\nfollowed by the night-blue suture.<\/p>\n

The wall behind registration listed a man
\nwith his face open. Through the glass doors,
\nI saw the sky going blue to black as it had<\/p>\n

24 hours earlier when I last stood there gazing off
\ninto space, into the nothingness of that town.
\nBat to the head. Knife to the face. They tore<\/p>\n

down the boy in an alleyway, the broken syringe
\nskittering across the sidewalk. No concussion.
\nBut the face torn open, the blood congealed<\/p>\n

and crusted along his cheek. Stitch up the faggot
\nin bed 6 is all the ER doctor had said.
\nQueasy from the lack of sleep, I steadied<\/p>\n

my hands as best as I could after cleaning up
\nthe dried blood. There was the needle
\nand the night-blue suture trailing behind it.<\/p>\n

There was the flesh torn and the skin open.
\nI sat there and threw stitch after stitch
\ntrying to put him back together again. [\u2026]<\/p>\n

About the Author<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[column col=”1\/4″] paper \u2022 100 pages \u2022 15.95 ISBN-13:\u00a0978-1-935536-06-2 Add to Cart [\/column] Torn C. Dale Young In Torn, his third collection, poet and doctor C. Dale Young continues his investigations into the human,\u00a0depicted here as both spiritual being and as biological instrument, as both \u201cthe soul and its attendant\u00a0concerns\u201d and as a device that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3103","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3103"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18879,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3103\/revisions\/18879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}