cover image Down on the Shore: The Family and Place That Forged a Poet's Voice

Down on the Shore: The Family and Place That Forged a Poet's Voice

Adele V. Holden. Woodholme House Publishers, $21.95 (272pp) ISBN 978-1-891521-04-1

Brought up in a rural African-American community on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Holden was the second of five children raised during the Great Depression by parents who, despite the crippling burdens of poverty, segregation and discrimination, fought for their children to have an education. The emotional power of her story offsets the occasionally awkward writing and Holden's heavy reliance on verbatim representations of conversations that took place decades ago. Holden's father, Snow, was angered because the local ""colored school"" ended at the ninth grade. After he suggested to the mayor that black children be permitted to continue at the white school, Holden's mother, Jane, dreamed that he was forcibly abducted by several white men who threatened to drown him in a nearby river. Despite this terrifying vision and the lynchings of several black men in the area, Snow courageously persisted, eventually winning a compromise in which 15 children stayed on for an additional year at the ""colored school"" on a one-time only basis. Holden effectively conveys the climate of fear that suffused her childhood, while also emphasizing the parental love that sustained her (her portrait of a family Christmas is particularly evocative). This is a moving tribute to two unsung heroes: Holden's mother, who took in washing, and Snow, an auto mechanic who spent hours driving Holden (who later became a teacher and a poet) back and forth to the nearest segregated school so that she could finish high school. B&w photos. (Nov.)