Transcript of the Unnamed

BlurbsLee evokes the nuanced character of the capital city, a place "between joy / and bruise" where you can be "born of church and Sunday dinners" but also haunted by people treated as if they were disposable, such as the "Freeway Phantom" girls whose brown bodies disappear like "hollow stalks." Lee memorably captures a sense of place, balanced on the knife-edge between the politician's grand domed edifices, and the projects of Anacostia, ringing with bullets for "night's soundtrack." These poems are an accomplishment: riveting and brave.

-Kim Roberts, literary historian, author of A Literary Guide to Washington, DC (University of Virginia Press, 2018)

In Lee's book of poetry, she has cultivated a collection of dandelions worth saving. These poems are "bright-headed," precise and significant. Delving into her childhood experiences as a Jehovah's Witness, the voices in these poems reveal a unique perspective of home and familial relations. In a haunting series of poems, Lee narrates the story of the Freeway Phantom Girls, an unsolved case of murdered black women and girls from her hometown. Transcript of the Unnamed, also considers the overwhelming adult self-how to thrive in a society that continually pushes the extraordinary into shadow.

-Kwoya Fagin Maples, author of Mend (University Press of Kentucky, 2018)

In Transcript of the Unnamed, Lee creates a book-length love letter, a message of hope, and a note in a bottle to women of color, women who are "hoping to grow something when nothing takes hold." Transcript of the Unnamed is a book of growth, of blooming and growing things, of giving voice to the nameless. It speaks for black girls and women in her hometown, Washington, DC. Lee becomes the voice of women who are reaching for respect, for love, to be seen and remembered; "reaching for bird birth sky."

-Stewart Shaw, author of The House Of Men (Glass Lyre, 2019)