Blackacre by Monica Youn

The title of Monica Youn’s Blackacre comes from a legal term that refers to a fictional stand-in piece of land, basically a “John Doe” of locations. Youn uses this terminology as a imagistic launching point, summoning up Greenacres, Goldacres, Redacres and what they might mean. Her immense attention to language and language play makes the poems twinkle. There’s an emphasis on sounds and a precision of language throughout the book that itself equals love. The poems feel vibrant and urgent, immediate. Many of the poems approach a narrative in the way great photojournalism does—by freezing a moment and showing action in a still moment. She interrogates and examines her subjects. She tells stories by painting the space around them, letting the action lie in the negative space, in the whitespace, whiteacre, if you will. Buy here.

From “Greenacre”

Gold flecked, dark-rimmed, opaque— // like a toad’s / stolid surprise— // the lake never blinks / its hazel eye. . .

From” Epiphyte”

. . . Because a tree cannot hear, // this cone of sunlight / is all the bugle it knows // (an answering flicker / a flare). // What alternate insistence / would muster itself // against this upward rush, // this eager branch / exposing its throat // (irreproachable)? // It was not your hands / that smoothed // new bark / over the hectic light . . .

From “Quinta del Sordo” (after Goya’s “Saturn Devouring His Son”)

how can I / ask you to // absolve me / my fingers // still greasy / with envy . . .