Book Feature: Blanche: Poems of a Blue Ridge Woman

Brenda Kay Ledford, Author

Poet Brenda Kay Ledford grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Hayesville in the 1950s and ‘60s when, she says, listening to family stories on the front porch, playing in Hyatt-Mill Creek and attending “loud, long and emotional” church services comprised her childhood.

“One of my best memories was my mama driving the old black Ford to the Hayesville Town Library on Saturday,” Ledford says. “I checked out armloads of books.” A love of reading grew into a love of writing poetry, which her mother encouraged. “Always when I gave poetry readings, she was my biggest fan,” says Ledford.

When she lost her mother last year after two years of caring for her at home, Ledford began to gather memories as a way of honoring her mother’s life. Blanche: Poems of a Blue Ridge Woman, which contains new and previously published verse about her mother, is a way to celebrate her mother and a past way of life as well as the lives of other Blue Ridge women.

“I wrote the poems because it was a way of working through the grief of Mama’s passing,” she says. “As I wrote the poems, I could just feel her presence. Her love. This book is a tribute to Mama, a memorial and a way to preserve our rich Southern Appalachian heritage.”

Blanche: Poems of a Blue Ridge Woman, November, 2021, poetry, paperback, $15, by Brenda Kay Ledford, and published by Redhawk Publications, Hickory, NC. Find the book at the Clay County Chamber of Commerce in Hayesville, at regional bookstores and at RedhawkPublications.com. Ledford will read at the Peacock Performing Arts Center in Hayesville on September 24 at 7 p.m.