Galatea Resurrects 14: Hill on Green Cammie by Crysta Casey

On reading the first three lines of “A Curse,” the opening poem of Green Cammie–

You told them I was slitting

my wrists. But I had no scars

on my arms then.

I knew I’d have to shove my biases aside. I’m not a fan of the personal lyric, life/living processed down to an iconic moment, an epiphany, an image that stands up for something supposedly larger. I don’t like being manipulated as a reader, funneled into a pre-conceived shadow of a glimpse of an experience I will never experience. I prefer poetries that are neither illustrative nor evocative–the mirror held up to reality has long been shattered, reflective shards scuffed and swept into the gutter, never to be whole again. That mirror lied or at best told only part of the truth.

Yet how do I not dis a poet who has experienced the hurricane-force resistance against women in the military and countless other travails?