Harry Youtt

What My Father Didn't Know I Learned from Him Harry Youtt

What My Father Didn't Know I Learned from Him, by Harry Youtt, is a collection of poems that are a reminiscence of his father, one that carries within it the seeds of the universal that have meaning for all of us. A photo-album of a man's soul. The first selection: Skyline, sets the tone for the entire work:


When my father died, it was like the towers coming down.




Our skyline was changed beyond recognition.
Now, parts of my father I never recovered are still down there
buried in the rubble.


The collection has been labeled as almost a new art form, as fresh a departure from the conventional poetry of our current culture as Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass was in its time. Easily accessible to everyone, it is the story of a "simple-complicated man," presented not as an epic or saga with a forced, over-arching theme, but as a series of starbursts, one episode at a time. The result is that, like a box of popcorn, one can reach in and grab a handful at a time from any place in the box, leaving the rest for later.
Most contemporary poetry strives to be poetry. It tries to twist language into a message the poet wants to get across. It seeks phrases that call attention to themselves as poetry. By contrast, in these poems, as Harry Youtt says, "I just write them down and let them reach back for me."
This is a different approach. It is what Walt Whitman recognized when he characterized the poet as not an "arguer"but as pure "judgment"itself. "He judges not as the judge judges but as the sun falling round a helpless thing."
The collection is a long-delayed search for the discovery of the poet's father ­ a search that reveals to all of us a part of the universal quest to find the significance of our immediate roots. As Harry says: "We are all mystified by our parents. And many of us spend a long time trying to make sense of things for ourselves, so that we can move on into our own individuality. In demystifying my own father, I hope that others will gain insight in their own separate singular struggles and will be encouraged or inspired to light out in their own directions. The book will honor me best if it stimulates others to seek to create their own poetic starbursts as they go."