All Around Cowboy
You can almost smell the Brut cologne wafting through the pages as you read Scot Young's new book of poetry, All Around Cowboy. The book is filled with firsts: first rock gig, first ballgame, first love crush, first Dodge. He writes of his early dreams back home, Mom and Dad at the center, a child's mind running wild with empathy, considering young mothers from strange towns he's never met, wondering if they too blow bubbles in their dreams. The poems about his barfly father are crushing. Plainly said, brick by brick, the words lay out like a low budget 70's cop caper. You see every move before your eyes, and it's heavy at times. And it's all there, beyond the tavern dust. And Young is never alone. Even when the poet is struggling through a sleepless night, he sniffs at the air and listens quietly for anything recognizable in the house - the smell of cigarettes, the squeak of linoleum - and it's in those moments where the poets words are delivered so powerfully."
-Rob Azevedo, Turning on the Wasp (Kung Fu
Treachery Press, 2020)
"Scot Young may not want to hear this, but he isn't a cowboy, not in the movie poster sense anyway. This book, his first, is the history of the man he's become, stronger than his heroes Richard Brautigan and Charles Bukowski, educating young people, publishing countless others without thought given to personal reward, often helping them when they're not in a position to help themselves, opening his heart and sharing a great love of literature, Scot Young is a great poet, but anyone can do that, he's an even greater man, so I take it back, maybe he is a cowboy, but let's be clear, John Wayne would never have the balls to be Scot Young."
-John Dorsey, Author of The Prettiest Girl at the
Dance
"A beautiful, touching and often insightful journey that hits its mark, Scot Young's All Around Cowboy is a country rock rodeo get down. A place suspended in time where Mickey Mantle meets Jack Kerouac on the cosmic baseball diamond with Hendrix on guitar and a lonesome Whippoorwill calling the play by play in the voice of Hank Williams singing my jukebox's got a hole in it. A down to earth collection of first love, brotherly love and true love straight from the heart, these poems are life and death lessons swimming in a swirling beer while sitting in an old school bar called father's office somewhere in the land of sky blue waters."
- S.A. Griffin
"When archeology digs up a book of poetry from this changing planet, it will reveal a bit of "Herodotus Americana" as Scot Young's good cowboy rides into the sunset of the greatest generation and plays the last number on the jukebox. Like the songs, the poems of tragedy and joys, from mini skirts to baseball, grows up and glows up in the middle of the country's golden era of post war years from the 50's to 70's. This all around cowboy knew the greats, from "Butterfly" to "Buk" while metaphorically herding the storm clouds out of the sky. Tragic, rough & rowdy, hip and cool, delicate for the heart and head, his poems, like Robinson, hits the balls and touches all bases, a book I surely dig and so will you, with "Hey good lookin'" on the cover times two. Plus, one can learn his great definition of poetry and discover the worst insult in Western idiom."
- Charles Plymell
