Even More Taboo Than Love
JEANNINE HALL GAILEY
C. Dale Young uses this third book to address injustices, the divisions caused by pain, prejudice, and a fractured spirit.
I have been trying to pinpoint exactly what made me so much more alert and yes, affectionate towards C. Dale Young’s third book, Torn, and its charms, compared to his first two books. I have always thought of him as an accomplished and intelligent writer (full disclosure: AND I’ve been reading his blog for years, not just his poetry,) but the tone and language of this third book seemed more welcoming to me – more casual, relaxed, looser somehow. The sense of humor is dark, perhaps, but prominent throughout the collection that is at the same time serious in its subjects and intents. His meditations on his Catholic faith and his training in medicine are especially interesting. The title poem, “Torn,” the last in the book, a familiar enough story of violence that Young examines from the viewpoint of caretaker of both the victim and the criminal, is worth the cost of admission all by itself. When I heard the poem out loud, I felt I had been punched in the chest. In a good way. [...] Read more here!
