num_pages: 104
description: In Elegy on Toy Piano, Dean Young's sixth book of poems, elegiac necessity finds itself next to goofy celebration. Daffy Duck enters the Valley of the Eternals. Faulkner and bell-bottoms cling to beauty's evanescence.Even in single poems, Young's tone and style vary. No one feeling or idea takes precedence over another, and their simultaneity is frequently revealed; sadness may throw a squirrelly shadow, joy can find itself dressed in mourning black. As in the agitated "Whirlpool Suite": "Pain / and pleasure are two signals carried / over one phoneline."In taking up subjects as slight as the examination of a signature or a true/false test, and as pressing as the death of friends, Young's poems embrace the duplicity of feeling, the malleability of perception, and the truth telling of wordplay.
language: English
title: Elegy On Toy Piano
titlecomplete: Elegy On Toy Piano (Pitt Poetry Series)
genres: Poetry, Music
ratings_count: 563
awards: awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Pulitzer Prize
category: Poetry
publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press