FFB: ORDINARY LIGHT, Tracy K Smith

 

Tracy K Smith is mostly a poet but this is her memoir. It's a story about a mother and a daughter and the religion that bound them together and nearly drove them apart. Although I have read many novels about Black girls from poor and abusive families, this one is not that. Tracy's family is middle-class, her father is in the military for most of her childhood. The five children are well-cared for and loved. They don't face the kind of bigotry that many Black children face. But, of course, it is always there to some degree. (A white friend calls her Black Girl).

This was an amazingly honest and forthright book. Ms. Smith does not shy away from telling you about many facets of her life that most writers might skip over or at least dull the impact. She spends a lot of time on her religious life and how she grew away from it. I found it interesting and am going forward to read her poetry

She is in Michigan this week, speaking at the Marygrove Conservancy. Each year, it hosts a Black writer of note. Marygrove, a mostly Black college on the fringes of Detroit, no longer exists as a college. But the Conservancy has preserved some of its institutions.