A review by karnaconverse
Walking Gentry Home: A Memoir of My Foremothers in Verse by Alora Young

family stories and coming of age


Young, 2021 Youth Poet Laureate for the Southern United States, explores the maternal side of her ancestry which she can name back to 1796. The 120 poems recognize each individual's transition from girlhood to womanhood—some who are dark- and some who are light-skinned— amid the societal constructs of the time period. In the final section, she tells her own story by acknowledging how she carries her ancestor's stories within her but also that "I am not just my mother's daughter." These words from one of the last poems in the book, "Athena and Ida," reveal that transformation.

As I write this, I have eight months and twenty-three days
before I'm old enough to vote in this country
I've got negative seventeen years three months and seven days
since your votes began affecting me.
They sat the meek shall inherit the earth,
but they inherit the laws and the wrongs as well.
The children are left when all is done
to rebuild the empires that fell.
We the people must contend that
there are laws we must amend
even when those in power try to bend and break us.
But when resolves start to shake we must resolve to stay
awake
because the things that tear us down are what awake us.

I enjoyed this unique structure for tracing family history and appreciate the depth of genealogical research undertaken.

2023 Des Moines Library Challenge. Bonus Read: April Poetry Month