Hope Floats

I appreciated Danny Duncan Collum’s article “Love, Race, and History” (June 2013) about U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey. I just wish he had had room to mention her book Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Part poetry and part prose memoir with family photos, it evokes life there so well. Two years after Katrina, I was a member of a church team repairing storm-damaged homes, mostly for poor African Americans. I was stunned by the devastation. Her book brought it all back in a most poignant and yet hopeful way. Thank you for the article.

John E. Maxwell
Port Angeles, Washington