Short Takes on the Apocalypse

Consisting largely of free verse, prose poetry, couplets, and even found poetry, this latest from Young (Airstream) congeals works that riff off quotes on writing from a wide variety of authors, including Sophocles, Mark Twain, Erica Jong, and Elmore Leonard. This collection is an accomplished one, but for all Young’s excellence as a poet, the book rarely rises beyond conceptual play. The book is split into two sections—“Spun Shrunk Broken” and “Too Many Guns in the House”—and moves between two primary modes, contemplative and cutting, respectively. But the choice to create disparate, tonally discrete sections leaves the collection feeling oddly weighted, and only compounds the problem that the contents by section, seen in aggregate, are largely too similar to play off each other well. This leaves the collection falsely unvarying, despite the decided range on display: “Family,” “Hearse,” and “Chagall’s Lovers,” for example, could not be more different from “Bite,” “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?,” “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” or the titular “Short Takes on the Apocalypse.” But with its contrasts muddied the collection’s edge is dulled. Nevertheless, the collection is definitely worth reading for the beauty of her writing alone, it’s just frustratingly shy of being exceptional. (Apr.)