美国国家公共电台 NPR--In a new memoir in verse, Alora Young traces the lives of generations of Black women

In a new memoir¹ in verse, Alora Young traces the lives of generations of Black women

Transcript²

As a young Black woman coming of age, Alora Young traced her life back through generations of Southern women.

She's 19, and the 2021 Youth Poet Laureate of the Southern United States. Her debut³ book Walking Gentry⁴ Home archives her family's history – and the legacy⁵ of slavery in the American South – in the form of a memoir in verse.

Here's the very first poem from the book, titled "Mother, TN, Many Many Generations":

I have many mothers

They are mostly black

They are mostly broken

They have existed here for centuries

They are dying with the towns that birthed them

"I started the book this way because I feel like this is a story that doesn't have a starting place," Young told NPR's Morning Edition. "For thousands of generations, Black women have existed on this planet and all of the culmination⁶ of thousands of women led to me being here."

In the book, Young recounts the stories of nine generations of women — all the way back to Amy, who was the first of Young's foremothers to arrive in Western Tennessee.

Amy was enslaved and had a child with her enslaver. The book takes readers through all the stories that come after, leading to Young's own story of becoming a young woman.

On how the book came together

It always needed to be about my family's history, because these poems didn't start out about me. They started out about not knowing the names of my family members, about losing my grandmother, and thinking what difficulties she must have gone through being a pregnant teenager in the South in the 1960s. It's [about] the brutal⁷ realities that my family members faced, and I wanted to make sure their stories were never ever forgotten.

I actually interviewed all the living women in my family. I did a lot of genealogy⁸ research, and once I reached a point where there was nothing more I could learn from the records, I sat down and I called every single living woman in my family and I interviewed them. We had wonderful conversations and honestly, I feel like I'm so much closer to the women in my family now because of this book.

On Gentry's story

When my grandmother Gentry was 14 years old, she got pregnant. And then of course, she got married. One day, she got into a fight with my great-grandfather Walter Dean. She walked all the way from her house with her husband, miles and miles back to her early family home, where she grew up. She gets there, and her mom's like, 'oh hey' and they spend the day together and she hangs out with her brother. And at the end Gentry says, 'Mama, I want to come home.' Then Nanny Pearl, who is Gentry's mom, says, 'okay, Ortho B, walk Gentry home.' Can you imagine the shock of thinking you are home, thinking that you've finally come back to your family, only to be told that the home you grew up in is not your home anymore? She said, Ortho B, walk your sister home back to the house that she's making. I think it's so powerful because I think that is transition from girlhood to womanhood. It's walking from the home you grow up in to the home you make.

I don't know if this is a plight⁹ that all lighter-skinned women of color face, but it's something that I know that me and my other sister have definitely experienced. And it is the feeling that when you look at yourself in the mirror, you see that the color of your skin is the product of uninvited attention from people who enslaved your family. And I look the way I look not because either of my parents are consensually white, but because my bloodline is filled with nonconsensual whiteness. And it's honestly a hard thing to think about, and it's a hard thing to experience, because no one wants to look at themselves and see rape¹⁰. But that's just a reality that I have to live with, and that's something I see when I look in the mirror.

And I want to make sure that, through discussing this troubling sensation I feel, I don't dismiss the struggles of darker skinned women. But to me, darker skin has always been a symbol of true beauty because my mom is brown-skinned and I see her as the epitome¹¹ of all things good and gentle and compassionate¹².

On poetry's role in recording¹³ painful history, but also breaking that cycle

I believe poetry is such a powerful tool, because it can convey the human experience in a way that no other kind of writing can. And I believe that we can use this art form as a tool for education and communication. I believe poetry is something that can cross any line, any border. And I think we need to try to cross these lines and borders and connect our world through the arts because we can make the world better.

1 memoir   

n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录

参考例句：

• He has just published a memoir in honour of his captain.他刚刚出了一本传记来纪念他的队长。
• In her memoir,the actress wrote about the bittersweet memories of her first love.在那个女演员的自传中，她写到了自己苦乐掺半的初恋。

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 debut   

n.首次演出，初次露面

参考例句：

• That same year he made his Broadway debut, playing a suave radio journalist.在那同一年里，他初次在百老汇登台，扮演一个温文而雅的电台记者。
• The actress made her debut in the new comedy.这位演员在那出新喜剧中首次登台演出。

4 gentry   

n.绅士阶级，上层阶级

参考例句：

• Landed income was the true measure of the gentry.来自土地的收入是衡量是否士绅阶层的真正标准。
• Better be the head of the yeomanry than the tail of the gentry.宁做自由民之首，不居贵族之末。

5 legacy   

n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西

参考例句：

• They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
• He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。

6 culmination   

n.顶点；最高潮

参考例句：

• The space race reached its culmination in the first moon walk.太空竞争以第一次在月球行走而达到顶峰。
• It may truly be regarded as the culmination of classical Greek geometry.这确实可以看成是古典希腊几何的登峰造级之作。

7 brutal   

adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的

参考例句：

• She has to face the brutal reality.她不得不去面对冷酷的现实。
• They're brutal people behind their civilised veneer.他们表面上温文有礼，骨子里却是野蛮残忍。

8 genealogy   

n.家系，宗谱

参考例句：

• He had sat and repeated his family's genealogy to her,twenty minutes of nonstop names.他坐下又给她细数了一遍他家族的家谱，20分钟内说出了一连串的名字。
• He was proficient in all questions of genealogy.他非常精通所有家谱的问题。

9 plight   

n.困境，境况，誓约，艰难；vt.宣誓，保证，约定

参考例句：

• The leader was much concerned over the plight of the refugees.那位领袖对难民的困境很担忧。
• She was in a most helpless plight.她真不知如何是好。

10 rape   

n.抢夺，掠夺，强奸；vt.掠夺，抢夺，强奸

参考例句：

• The rape of the countryside had a profound ravage on them.对乡村的掠夺给他们造成严重创伤。
• He was brought to court and charged with rape.他被带到法庭并被指控犯有强奸罪。

11 epitome   

n.典型，梗概

参考例句：

• He is the epitome of goodness.他是善良的典范。
• This handbook is a neat epitome of everyday hygiene.这本手册概括了日常卫生的要点。

12 compassionate   

adj.有同情心的，表示同情的

参考例句：

• She is a compassionate person.她是一个有同情心的人。
• The compassionate judge gave the young offender a light sentence.慈悲的法官从轻判处了那个年轻罪犯。

13 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。