Property Poetry

Monica Youn, a Yale law grad and poet has a book coming out, entitled Blackacre.  Her poem Whiteacre was recently featured on the American Academy of Poets website.  Here's an interview with Youn, where she talks about the influence of the law on her poetry. Here's the poem:

the trees all planted in the same month after the same fire

 

              each thick around
              as a man’s wrist

 

meticulously spaced grids cutting the sunshine

 

              into panels into planks
              and crossbeams of light

 

an incandescent architecture that is the home that was promised you

 

              the promise of your new
              purified body

 

your body rendered glasslike by fire now open to the light

 

              slicing through you
              through the glass

 

bones of your hands as you lift the light free of its verticals

              carry it blazing
              through your irradiated life