Something I Said - Review Of Books By Poets Greg Hewett And Lightsey Darst

Greg Hewett's "Darkacre" and Lightsey Darst'sdaily in the New York Times, and of their
"Find the Girl": Two powerful new collections frommothers writing about them." Lightsey Darst, a
Coffee House Press Dwight Hobbes, Twin CitiesNational Endowment for the Arts fellow, is a
Daily Planet March 29, 2010 To celebrate Nationalwriting instructor, dance critic, and dancer living in
Poetry Month, The Loft Literary Center's a doubleMinneapolis, where she curates a writers' salon,
bill of Coffee House Press authors, MinnesotaThe Works, at the Bryant-Lake Bowl. Her work
poets Greg Hewett and Lightsey Darst. Greghas been published in, among other venues,
Hewett (The Eros Conspiracy, To Collect theAntioch Review, Diagram, Pheope, and Emprise
Flesh, Red Suburb), former Fulbright fellow toReview. Her first collection, Find the Girl, is an
Denmark and Norway, currently associateimpassioned perspective on the exploitation and
professor of English at Carleton College, has avictimization of women and girls virtually since
new collection: Darkacre. It's a fascinatingtime immemorial, from the fable of Snow White
achievement that distinguishes Hewett as ato Helen of Troy to JonBenet Ramsey. It isn't lost
master of uncanny imagery and sheer immediacy.on Darst that some of the damage done to
He brings to bear rich imagination, illuminating suchyoung females is unwitting, even intended to
concepts the infrastructure of civilization, theempower. "When I was a girl," she recalls, "I loved
body's intimate topography, and the culturalSnow White. She was the only brunette fairy tale
terrain of Italian opera. "I didn't really choose theseheroine, for one thing, and then her abandonment
poems for the collection," says Hewett. "Theyin a hostile world full of dangerous
were, for the most part, written around the thispleasures—the poisoned apple, the hairbrush,
idea of land or place, with all the history andthe too-tight lacing—just rang right. Not that I
symbols every tract of land contains." The titlewas abandoned. I had very loving parents. But,
came from a conversation with his brother, anright now, there's a lot that even loving parents
attorney. "He mentioned the curious wordjust do not help girls with. Now, I can analyze that
'blackacre,' which, he told me, in what's called realfairy tale and see that Snow White just turns out
property law simply means 'property A,' with[to be] the helpless fool she's raised to be. But
'whiteacre' being 'property B,' 'brownacre' beingthat analysis doesn't [undercut] the story's
'property C' and so forth. Well, I hadpower." Her process in selecting the works for
misremembered 'blackacre' as 'darkacre' andFind the Girl? "My personal metaphor for this is
became fascinated with the metaphoricalthe city of Troy, built and destroyed over and
resonance. For some time I'd been wanting toover again in the same place. Each time I rewrote
write something about the land and how we usethe manuscript I had more of an idea what I was
and abuse it, but not as landscape or so-calledaiming at. The final version is really a novel in my
'writing of place,' and this terminology gave me amind, not a collection of poems." She adds, "I've
path in, so to speak." An instance of how movingalways loved fairy tales and mythology. In
Hewett's pen be is the poignant "Apparently Onlyreinventing them for my own use, I know I'm not
Writing." Asked to reflect on the crafting of it, ondoing anything new, but still I [it's] something
how it, in fact, impacted the poet himself, heessential. All those stories are ours now. We have
answers, "It's part of a trio of poems calledto figure out how we relate to them." Attendant
'Proceeding from Emotion.' After writing the threeto the tragedy of girls who go missing is the
I felt shaken. I'd been trying to make sense ofassertion from minority communities that neither
our civilization and its use of violence—war, inlaw enforcement nor the media are particularly
particular—and thought how we project theconcerned unless the imperiled youngsters are
grief onto women, or mothers, as in the Stabatcute little white children. Darst states, "I thought a
Mater, Mary mourning her son Jesus. This is oftenlot about that cruel contrast between front-page
done by objectifying the mother in a sentimentalblondes and back-page black girls. Ultimately,
way. I then wondered, what if the mother werethough, this is a book about the reality I saw
not simply an image of grief, but was writing andwhen I was growing up. I went to a middle school
reflecting on the violence and grief? What if shethat was about half white and half
had the subjectivity? Each of the three poemsAfrican-American, but nobody ever talked about
contains a scrap of her writing in italics. In thefeelings, about how it felt to be whoever you
first, she notes, 'Apparently/ only writing,/ war,were, going through that. I did put in some bits
and tears/ distinguish us/ from the animals,' but inthat I overheard or saw, but I don't know what
the last she changes her mind and writes, 'If youit's like to be a girl of color and didn't try to
beat a dog hard enough/ it will produce tears,'render that. That would be a different book." The
which, by the way, is true. Reading the poembook Lightsey Darst has written uses a beautiful
now I think about the names of all of the soldiersartful, stark power of poetry to confront an ugly,
falling in Iraq and Afghanistan who I read almostpervasive ill.