{"product_id":"book-of-hours-isbn-9780375711886","title":"Book of Hours","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.\"If you read no other book of poetry this year, this should be the one.\" —\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"An impressively musical exploration of grief and endurance. . . . Young wrestles with loss and joy with enviable beauty and subtlety.\" \u003ci\u003e—\u003cb\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Young’s tone is always pitch-perfect in these poems.\" \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003cb\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"In Young’s poems, loss is built into beauty, and while (for the most part) we take turns experiencing them, they never seem truly separate. As such, many of his poems are both sad and sweet, solemn and celebratory, reading like tender eulogies for whatever a father’s future can hold.\" \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003cb\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"I’ve read plenty of books about grief and about coming through grief in my life, but I’ve never before encountered a book that gets it as right as Kevin Young’s \u003ci\u003eBook of Hours\u003c\/i\u003e. It’s one of those rare reading experiences that I recognized, even as I read it, as a book I was going to buy over and over again, to give as a gift to friends who’ve had that certain hole cut out of them, the loss that you can recognize from a distance, even in the happiest of times.\" \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003cb\u003eThe Stranger\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eKevin Young is the author of seven previous books of poetry, including\u003ci\u003e Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels\u003c\/i\u003e, winner of a 2012 American Book Award, and\u003ci\u003e Jelly Roll\u003c\/i\u003e, a finalist for the National Book Award. He is also the editor of eight other collections, most recently \u003ci\u003eThe Hungry Ear: Poems of Food \u0026amp; Drink.\u003c\/i\u003e Young’s book \u003ci\u003eThe Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness, \u003c\/i\u003ewon the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize, was a \u003ci\u003eNew York Times \u003c\/i\u003eNotable Book and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism, and won a PEN Open Book Award. He is currently the Atticus Haygood Professor of Creative Writing and English, curator of Literary Collections and curator of the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library at Emory University.\u003ci\u003eBereavement\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Behind his house, my father’s dogs \u003cbr\u003e sleep in kennels, beautiful, \u003cbr\u003e he built just for them.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e They do not bark. \u003cbr\u003e Do they know he is dead? \u003cbr\u003e They wag their tails\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u0026amp; head. They beg \u003cbr\u003e \u0026amp; are fed. \u003cbr\u003e Their grief is colossal\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u0026amp; forgetful. \u003cbr\u003e Each day they wake \u003cbr\u003e seeking his voice,\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e their names. \u003cbr\u003e By dusk they seem \u003cbr\u003e to unremember everything—\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e to them even hunger \u003cbr\u003e is a game. For that, I envy. \u003cbr\u003e For that, I cannot bear to watch them\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e pacing their cage. I try to remember \u003cbr\u003e they love best confined space \u003cbr\u003e to feel safe. Each day\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e a saint comes by to feed the pair \u003cbr\u003e \u0026amp; I draw closer \u003cbr\u003e the shades.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I’ve begun to think of them \u003cbr\u003e as my father’s other sons, \u003cbr\u003e as kin. Brothers-in-paw.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e My eyes each day thaw. \u003cbr\u003e One day the water cuts off. \u003cbr\u003e Then back on.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e They are outside dogs— \u003cbr\u003e which is to say, healthy \u003cbr\u003e \u0026amp; victorious, purposeful\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u0026amp; one giant muscle \u003cbr\u003e like the heart. Dad taught \u003cbr\u003e them not to bark, to point\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e out their prey. To stay. \u003cbr\u003e Were they there that day? \u003cbr\u003e They call me\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e like witnesses \u0026amp; will not say. \u003cbr\u003e I ask for their care \u003cbr\u003e \u0026amp; their carelessness—\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e wish of them forgiveness. \u003cbr\u003e I must give them away. \u003cbr\u003e I must find for them homes,\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e sleep restless in his. \u003cbr\u003e All night I expect they pace \u003cbr\u003e as I do, each dog like an eye\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e roaming with the dead \u003cbr\u003e beneath an unlocked lid.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eMemorial Day\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Thunder knocks \u003cbr\u003e loud on all the doors.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Lightning lets you \u003cbr\u003e inside every house, \u003cbr\u003e white flooding\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e the spare, spotless rooms. \u003cbr\u003e Flags at half mast.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e And like choirboys, \u003cbr\u003e clockwork, the dogs \u003cbr\u003e ladder their voices\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e to the dark, echoing off \u003cbr\u003e each half-hid star.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eGreening\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It never ends, the bruise \u003cbr\u003e of being—messy,\u003cbr\u003e untimely, the breath\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e of newborns uneven, half \u003cbr\u003e pant, as they find\u003cbr\u003e their rhythm, inexact\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e as vengeance. Son, \u003cbr\u003e while you sleep\u003cbr\u003e we watch you like a kettle\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e learning to whistle. \u003cbr\u003e Awake, older,\u003cbr\u003e you fumble now\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e in the most graceful \u003cbr\u003e way—grateful\u003cbr\u003e to have seen you, on your own\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e steam, simply eating, slow, \u003cbr\u003e chewing—this bloom\u003cbr\u003e of being. Almost beautiful\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e how you flounder, mouth full, bite \u003cbr\u003e the edges of this world\u003cbr\u003e that doesn’t want\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e a thing but to keep turning \u003cbr\u003e with, or without you—\u003cbr\u003e with. With. Child, hold fast\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e I say, to this greening thing \u003cbr\u003e as it erodes\u003cbr\u003e and spins.","brand":"Knopf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302705352933,"sku":"NP9780375711886","price":21.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780375711886.jpg?v=1767722939","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/book-of-hours-isbn-9780375711886","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}