Dean Young – författare

For more than 75 years Blondie and Dagwood Bumstead have been one of America''s favorite couples. Through war and peace, through boom and bust, through sexual revolution and social upheaval, Blondie has become the most widely read comic strip in syndication-in 35 languages and in 47 countries.

Blondie?the comic strip?was born on September 8, 1930. Dagwood was the rich, but awkward, son of millionaire industrialist J. Bolling Bumstead, while Blondie was a poor and beautiful nobody. Dagwood''s parents were opposed to the marriage, but love won out, even though Dagwood had to give up his inheritance to marry Blondie in February, 1933.

Over the years, the particulars of the Blondie comic strip have changed. Traveling salesmen have been replaced by telephone salesmen. Dagwood no longer takes the bus to work. He now rides in a car pool. But the themes have remained the same?eating, sleeping, making a living and raising children, all tied together by Blondie and Dagwood''s undying devotion to each other.

It''s all here in this definitive book: The lives of Blondie and Dagwood and their interactions with their children Alexander and Cookie, their neighbors Herb and Tootsie Woodley, the family dog Daisy, Dagwood''s boss Mr. Dithers, the mailman Mr. Beasley, and the neighborhood kid Elmo Tuttle. Included are Blondie and Dagwood''s courtship, their early beaus, their wedding, Dagwood at work, Blondie''s catering business, the cartoonist''s favorite strips, and the story of Chic and Dean Young, the creators of Blondie.

"Young has always stood out for his sharp humor, boundless poetic energy, and sheer readability. If adventurous poetry can sometimes feel like a tenuous tightrope walk, Young''s poems feel more like zip lines."—The Boston Globe

"This book reads like a long, breathless thank-you for life''s seemingly random jumble of beauty, strangeness, tenderness, and joy."—Los Angeles Times

Fall Higher is a major collection by one of America''s most inventive and entertaining writers. In this paperback release, Dean Young''s work contends with the challenges of love, wryly cataloging mistakes, deterioration, and broken vows. Young''s humor is as sharp as ever, and coupled with a vulnerability that renders Fall Higher his most intimate collection to date.

"The True Apology Takes Years"

The true apology takes years.Terrible dry eyes!The tree rings grow closer and closer togetherbut the nail is swallowed.Great heaps of rubble are moved up and down the shore.Finally a dance is performed to complete the forgiveness,stamping out small fires,the whole palladium decorated with thistleslike the last twenty pages of a Victorian novel.Now that your hunger is gone you''re welcome to the banquet . . .

Dean Young has published twelve books of poetry, including finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and Griffin Award. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the NEA, as well as an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He teaches at the University of Texas and lives in Austin, Texas.

"In Young''s work, the big essential questions—mortality, identity, the meaning of life—aren''t simply food for thought; they''re grounds for entertainment."—Toronto Star

"Surrealism seldom seems as much like real life as in Young''s hilarious and cautionary poems."—Booklist

Bender gathers a generous selection of new work along with treasure from Dean Young''s twelve volumes. Strongly influenced by Surrealism, Dean Young''s poems flash with extravagant imagery, humorous speech, sly views of the quotidian, and the exposed nerves of heartache. As the American Academy of Arts and Letters raved, "Young''s poems are as entertaining as a three-ring circus and as imaginative as a canvas by Hieronymus Bosch. He is one of the most inventive and satisfying poets writing today."

From "Even Funnnier Looking Now":

If someone had asked me then,Do you suffer from the umbrage of dawn''sdark race horses, is your heart a prisonerof raindrops? Hell yes! I would have saidor No way! Never would I have said,What could you possibly be talking about?I had just gotten to the twentieth centurylike a leftover girder from the Eiffel Tower.My Indian name was Pressure-Per-Square-Inch.I knew I was made of glass but I didn''tyet know what glass was made of: hot sandinside me like pee going all the wrongdirections, probably into my heartwhich I knew was made of gold foilglued to dust . . .

"Dean Young challenges the reader to hang on as he jigs from one poetic style to another and sets a wondrous course across a Duchampian landscape."—Chicago Tribune

"In Young''s work, the big essential questions—mortality, identity, the meaning of life—aren''t simply food for thought; they''re grounds for entertainment."—The Sunday Star (Toronto)

Dean Young escorts his transplanted heart into invigorating poetic territory that combines the joy of being alive with his signature mixture of surrealism, humor, and fast-cut imagery. A Pulitzer finalist known for his hard-won insights, NPR said it best when they observed that Young sees "even in the smallest things the heights of what we can be."

From "Harvest":

Bring me the high heart of a trapezist.If not, bring me the heart of a drunk monkso I may illuminate an ancient textin a language I can''t understand.The brain too is blood, blood racing100 miles an hour on training wheelsso let me splash through a red puddle,let me kiss the face of a red puddle,let me write my crazed, extreme demandson the frost-cracked window of god''s splitchest…

Dean Young is the author of twelve books of poetry, including finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and Griffin Award. He teaches at the University of Texas and lives in Austin.