A Black Doe in the Anthropocene: Poems

A Black Doe in the Anthropocene confronts brutal truths unearthed by the present—day descendant of an enslaved American family—author Artress Bethany White. Following her ancestors' enslavement in 1700s Virginia and North Carolina, White weaves together data from Hairston family plantation archives and her Black Hairston mother's inherited oral slave narrative to create searing poems on a history of Scottish genes and African ancestry. In doing this sacred work, White expands the historical narrative far beyond Hairston plantation grounds to examine the lives of freed people who emigrated back to Africa to reestablish themselves in a Black nation, and to also chronicle her own life in the US.

Invoking themes of heritage and the lives of mixed—race Hairstons, this collection outlines the hardships many emancipated people faced in the US as well as the ways Americans continue to encounter vestiges of institutional enslavement. An essential addition to ongoing conversations on race and racial (in)justice, A Black Doe in the Anthropocene lays bare our intertwined inheritances and what we leave in our wake for future generations.