Dean Young (poet) Quote

Poetry is not efficient. If you want to learn how to cook a lobster, it's probably best not to look to poetry. But if you want to see the word lobster in all its reactant oddity, its pied beauty, as if for the first time, go to poetry. And if you want to know what it's like to be that lobster in the pot, that's in poetry too.


The Art of Recklessness: Poetry as Assertive Force and Contradiction (ed. Graywolf Press, 2010)


Poetry is not efficient. If you want to learn how to cook a lobster, it's probably best not to look to poetry. But if you want to see the word...

Poetry is not efficient. If you want to learn how to cook a lobster, it's probably best not to look to poetry. But if you want to see the word...

Poetry is not efficient. If you want to learn how to cook a lobster, it's probably best not to look to poetry. But if you want to see the word...

Poetry is not efficient. If you want to learn how to cook a lobster, it's probably best not to look to poetry. But if you want to see the word...