Dean Young

Dean Young is a poet I plan on reading next semester. I've only read a few of his poems, but those few poems have moved me more than whole collections of many other poets have. And what's cool about NPR is that they feature articles on contemporary arts,  including poetry, which is where I found this excerpt from Young's new book, which came out in April, just days after a life-saving heart transplant.

"The Rhythms Pronounce Themselves Then Vanish"

After they told me the CT showed
there was nothing wrong with my stomach
but my heart was failing, I plunked
one of those weird two-dollar tea balls
I bought in Chinatown and it bobbed
and bloomed like a sea monster and tasted
like feet and I had at this huge
chocolate bar I got at Trader Joe's
and didn't answer the door even though
I could see it was UPS with the horse
medication and I thought of that picture
Patti took of me in an oval frame. Sweat
itself is odorless, composed of water,
sodium chloride, potassium salts,
and lactic acid; it's the bacteria growing
on dead skin that provides the stench.
The average life span of a human taste bud
is seven to ten days. Nerve pulses
can travel up to a hundred and seventy miles per hour.
All information is useless.
The typical lightning bolt
is one inch wide and five miles long.