Inheritance of Light ed. by Ray Gonzalez (review)

284 Western American Literature Short has extracted the universal from Liston’s story: “A boxer knows momen­ tum/ can suddenly shift. One blow/ changes everything ... The fight for survival is the fight.” CHRISTOPHER SINDT University of California, Davis Inheritance of Light. Edited by Ray Gonzalez. (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 1996. 240 pages, $24.95.) It’s as if the seventy-seven contemporary southwestern poets represented in Inheritance of Light begin from Miles Wilson’s premise—“First we establish that life is unfair”—and then move on to see what they can do about it. Some choose to try to start over in their individual lives (“let us consider seeing the nebula as they did/ on that first night of the world,” Patty Turner). Some choose to accept heroically the world’s blows (“a difficult/ and elegant/ glyph—/ accep­ tance,” Susan Bright). Some curse the easy targets or symbols of corruption or inanity, such as Shriners’ conventions, corporate greed, and overweight ambas­ sadors. The overwhelming sense one gets from the volume is that the world is too much with us, and we need to recall and record what will suffice before we are overwhelmed by “that something bigger/ something more terrible . . . just below the surface” (Milt McLeod). To counterbalance the terror and the bloodsoaked losses, to “soothe [their] dusty minds” (William Barney), and to prove to themselves that they at least have “governance/ of this given ground” (Sandra Lynn) of their individual lives, the poets record family tales and rituals, child­ hood memories, friends’ stories, daughters’ lives, their own defining rebellions, and moments of pure peace in the presence of the “genial moon” of the summer sky. The heavy reliance on the first-person pronoun reinforces the sense of urgency in the poems. There are many more people here than landscapes. Perhaps the land does not provide the solace, comfort, or psychological and spiritual nourishment it did for earlier generations of western poets. If the poets will do “Anything to establish/ connection” (Janet McCann), perhaps the connection they see avail­ able today is to one’s past, family, and friends, rather than to the monumental landscapes of the West. One final note: the poems are divided thematically into five numbered sec­ tions. Each section has poems that please, although, predictably, the poems on war and politics please less often, tending to dissolve into didacticism. The selections refuse to be neatly categorized, and the reader would do just as well to ignore the book’s divisions and browse the fine work here. ANDREW ELKINS Chadron State College ...