An unflinching reckoning with the traumas of one's life and those inherited through a history of exacted injustices "Some men find nothing, and others /...

An unflinching reckoning with the traumas of one's life and those inherited through a history of exacted injustices

"Some men find nothing, and others / find omens everywhere," writes C. Dale Young in Prometeo, a collection whose speaker is a proverbial "child of fire." In poems that thrive off of their distinct voice, the speaker confronts generational and lived trauma and their relationship to his multi-ethnicity. We are presented with the idea of the past's burial in the body and its constellatory manifestations--both in the speaker and those around him--in disease and pain, but also in strength and a capacity for intimacy with others and nature. Grounded in precise language, Young's examination of the past and its injuries turns into a celebration of the self. In stark, exuberant relief, the speaker proclaims "... I was splendidly blended, genetically engineered / for survival." Resilient, Young's poems find beauty in landscape, science, and meditation.