"Blood Must Bear Your Name"
by SUE WALKER
Mobile, Alabama
The 2002 Book of the Year judge was Ricks Carson. He said of Sue Walker's book- The winning book displays great variety while never lifting its share from the row it is plowing: the rich earth of responsi-bility to family and non-family alike. The book's structure moves the reader from the complexities of "personal blood" that challenge the definition of kin, through the middle ground of what I call "a woman's human blood," to a final convergence of the speaker and her "blood relation" with all sufferers. This is a very generous book. . . . to tell a story of bitterness, growth, and reconcil-iation helps the reader understand the ambiguous word "family.". . . the poet's sympathies with such diverse people as Van Gogh, Herbert Lee Richardson, and Zelda Fitzgerald confirm her allegiance to the world.
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