The Race for Daphne by Sarah C. Beckmann

Deftly crafted and brilliantly conceived, Sarah Beckmann’s debut full-length collection, The Race for Daphne, draws the reader into an intricate weave of competitive rowing, Greek mythology, and family. The poems—including a crown of sonnets, an erasure, and a sestina—explore the narrative which Beckmann, as a woman, has been born into, taking the reader from Long Island to Ireland to Hades and to the marshes of Lerna, where the poet urges the reader: “refuse to be a symbol, a myth, a monster or hero— / be what you yearn to be and change the narrative.” Also in the voice of Daphne, Beckmann declares “A pen is not just a weapon / in the hand of a woman: it’s a pair of forceps / yanking life into the planet.” I love this artfully vibrant collection that Beckmann has delivered into the world.

— Aaron Caycedo-Kimura, Author of Common Grace

Sarah Beckmann’s The Race for Daphne is at once brilliantly sculpted and lyrically irrepressible both in craft and content. With an especially light touch, she skillfully repurposes traditional forms and deftly reinvigorates the nuances of free verse. Her subjects of self, women, family, and Greek myth re-envisioned—securely nestled within the ever-forward motion of the crew race and, in Beckmann’s version, its team of women rowers—are brilliantly conceived to transcend gender, allowing her to take hold of the figurative sword traditionally wielded by men and “unsheathe this other side / of myself—.” Through her “careful strokes” and meticulous navigation, Sarah Beckmann’s poems propel us into “dark and deep” pools of metaphor and the transformative work of soul-making.

–Christine Casson, Assistant Professor of Creative Writing, Emerson College

The opening poem of Sarah Beckmann’s The Race for Daphne ends “…who are the heroes now,” a question explored through the book’s formally accomplished, multi-part poems. Underlying the collection is a quest for a modern mythology, one both feminist and loving. In the final sequence, “Daphne and the Hydra,” Beckmann reconsiders not only the monsters of ancient narratives but how those figures might refract aspects of the poet herself: “Is she a demon, or is she me?” Read Sarah Beckmann, and be inspired!

–Clare Rossini, Author of Lingo and Winter Morning with Crow