“Threads on the Paintings is both impressionistic memoir and homage to some great works of art. Timothy Young continually tests the limits of the visual in these poems and takes us deeper into a visceral yet spiritual sense of his life. I’ve never read a book that uses the spark of art to so consistently generate revelation. These poems testify to a thoroughly lived knowledge of both the outer world and the world of spirit. Like the paintings at Lascaux, they take us down into the cave of the ancestral to view the most luminous images. Son of a large, warm-blooded Irish-American family, Tim Young invites us as generous host to this astonishing and strangely joyful family gathering of poems.”
—Thomas R. Smith, author of Storm Island and Medicine Year