Casey Lynn Rocheteau, a 29-year-old Brooklyn poet who came here three months ago as the first winner of a "Write a House" literary residence opportunity, tells what a newcomer finds remarkable.
Casey Rocheteau: "I don’t know what this level of the historical loss of place or home feels like." (Facebook photo)
"One of the most endearing things I have found about Detroit thus far is the constant reference to the past in a way that makes it feel as though there is a living history here," she posts at the Write a House blog.
Certain areas, particularly commercial areas, often make you feel as though you are driving through both space and time. You find wide boulevards and signage that looks as though it has been untouched since 1963.
While I find the aesthetics of these areas to be charming, I think it also speaks to some element of Detroit as a place. . . . I understand that much of this comes out of the aftermath of 1967. . . There was a kind of stagnation that occurred between the late '60s and mid-'80s, where the destruction had remained untouched.
This is not haunting in any typical sense. The vestiges of the past that linger are not specters pockmarking the landscape so much as there is a kind of time-collapse even after decades of demolition, rebuilding, urban renewal, eminent domain restructuring, displacement and abandonment.
Rocheteau, who moved from the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, says a lifelong Detroiter told her "that he could no longer return to places from his childhood because many of them are no longer there."
I think about that often, because while this reality is true in many places, it feels more significant and prescient in Detroit. Even the young people that I work with in two Detroit high schools can map out their neighborhood and point to the people who moved away for the stores that are no longer there. . .
I experienced a great deal of loss as a child that still plagues me in many ways. But if I return to my hometown, there are not too many things amiss. I don’t know what this level of the historical loss of place or home feels like.
The nonprofit writer's residency program, in partnership with Young Detroit Builders, renovated a vacant home just north of Hamtramck. Roughly 350 applications flowed in from novelists, journalists, other nonfiction writers and poets across the country and beyond. Judges chose Rocheteau in November over nine finalists.
Most of her latest blog post discusses "one of my favorite books: 'Detroit: I Do Mind Dying' by Dan Georgakas and Marvin Surkin," published in 1975 and subtitled "A Study in Urban Reolution."
An earlier essay describes how she gets around without a car.
-- Alan Stamm
Earlier coverage at Deadline:
Brooklyn Poet Casey Rocheteau, 29, Is The Leadoff Write A House Winner, Sept. 18 2014
