Act Now & Save by Kevin Young
Act Now & Save
Kevin YoungIt’s a wonder the world
keeps its whirling—How I’ve waited
without a word—Staring where
the sun’s no longer—You gone
into ether, whereverYou want
to call it. SoonSun won’t fight
off the coldBut today warm
even in the rain.Whatever the well
you want meTo fall down I will—
Meet me by the deepest
part of the riverAnd we’ll drown together
wading out pastAll care, beyond even
the shore’s hollers.
MARGINALIA
1.
Day 1 of The Sealey Challenge. Today’s offering is Book of Hours by Kevin Young.
2.
How do we carry both the weight of loss and the grace of acceptance? I grappled with this question while reading this book. The first two sections are heavy with sorrow—the poet writes about his father’s passing, nearly swallowed whole by despair. Then he leads me towards a different light in the third section, where the birth of his child shifts the narrative.
3.
The final section draws a similarity to prayer books—but what I find curious here is that the poet surrenders to the idea of faith not in the divine but in poetry itself.
4.
Then again—aren’t poems prayers too? Doesn’t the divine also reside in language?
5.
These poems, with their biblical imagery and lines brimming with rhythm and music (something that I’ve always admired Kevin Young for), reflect a longing to feel whole while going through the deepest grief that is almost too impossible to bear.
6.
A traditional book of hours is often filled with litanies for the departed. I read that these poems were composed ten years after his father’s tragic accident, and I relate so much to the fact that mourning is never linear, and that to grieve means to continue loving after all these years.
7.
But perhaps we can still transform anguish into beauty—the poet juxtaposes loss with the tender joys of parenthood. He navigates the work of mourning towards a conscious decision to celebrate new life, and I think: How do we find solace amidst grief? What does it mean to rebuild and find joy again? Book of Hours offers no easy answers, and I am moved by it precisely because of that.
KEEP READING
SOURCE
This poem appeared in Book of Hours by Kevin Young, published by Knopf, 2014. Shared here with profound gratitude.
DESCRIPTION
“A decade after the sudden and tragic loss of his father, we witness the unfolding of grief. “In the night I brush / my teeth with a razor,” he tells us, in one of the collection’s piercing two-line poems. Capturing the strange silence of bereavement (“Not the storm / but the calm / that slays me”), Kevin Young acknowledges, even celebrates, life’s passages, his loss transformed and tempered in a sequence about the birth of his son: in “Crowning,” he delivers what is surely one of the most powerful birth poems written by a man, describing “her face / full of fire, then groaning your face / out like a flower, blood-bloom,/ crocused into air.” Ending this book of both birth and grief, the gorgeous title sequence brings acceptance, asking “What good/are wishes if they aren’t / used up?” while understanding “How to listen / to what’s gone.” Young’s frank music speaks directly to the reader in these elemental poems, reminding us that the right words can both comfort us and enlarge our understanding of life’s mysteries.”
ENDNOTES
- Read more poems by Kevin Young • Find books by this poet • Or view my library
- Explore other works in pursuit of: memory • grief • family • Or browse the index
- This is part of The Sealey Challenge.
DEAR READER
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