Hurrah’s Nest by Arisa White is an illustration of the “untidy heap” or “tangle of debris that can block a stream” that family can become, and it will remind readers how birds create their nests out of the most unwelcome or tossed aside elements of the world from hair to fabric strings and twigs. There are scars here, deep ones rooted in absentee parents and relatives whose ways of doing things countered the practices the narrator was taught. Minor acts of rebellion scream out in dreadlocks and boyish haircuts on girls. There are other poems with child-like qualities in which panties become parachutes and beaded braids become like seaweed in “Last Bath,” which represent happier memories and playfulness shared by young siblings with great imaginations.

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