A Brief Biography of My Name by Yalie Kamara
Akashic Books Press, 2018
Does a person’s ethnicity, nationality, or gender define that person’s identity? This is a question that A Brief Biography of My Name by Yalie Kamara attempts to answer. Kamara is a Sierra Leonean American who lives in Oakland, California, and she was a finalist for the Brunel International African Poetry Prize in 2017. A Brief Biography of My Name is a metaphorical work that explores the physical, emotional, and mental experiences of an African American woman. It traces a character’s journey to discovery and acceptance of identity.
Although it is a book of poems, A Brief Biography of My Name is a continuous story that is divided into three parts. The first part discusses the African cultural experiences that mold her personality. In the poem “Pest Control,” she talks about a rodent called the long mot arata and how it taught her an important lesson. She explains that it “is a type of / Sierra Leone rodent that strikes / a prey in sleep” and that its ploy of teasing its prey with cool air before biting it has taught her that undeserved flattery can sting.
The second part describes her experience in America. After migrating to the U.S., she begins seeking answers on what it means to be Black. Kamara and her nephew, Elijah, soon realize that black is a color and a character trait that defines the world they live in: “Black // was the hue of the world he desired… Black // is what he called his world.” She explains we can make our world whatever shade of black we desire no matter what the prevailing circumstances are.
The third part of the book illustrates her experience as a woman. Her anger and discomfort with her black experience is growing like a fetus in her uterus. She finally decides to let go of her anger, and it flows from her womb into the drain. In “New America” she portrays her desire to pursue hope, which she represents as a dance or song, despite the pain in her womb: “Give me / tradition / free from the thickness of horror… Good news… A dance or song … religion.” All her cries for restoration are futile, so she ends the poem praying for hope to come quickly.
Society often mocks those who are in search of identity, but the seven-year-old voice of Kamara reminds us of its importance: “For about four months my name appeared as Yal e / on the page.” She was heartbroken when no one cared about her incorrect name. She was in pain because her name had been cut and “left on the side of a red dirt / road and disappears after sizzling under the tangerine heat of the / Makoresh sun.” A Brief Biography of My Name uses bold, striking imagery to depict identity crisis, which makes it a powerful portrayal of the experiences of an African American woman.
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Delight Ejiaka is a sophomore at Lee University, where she majors and minors in digital media studies and writing respectively. Delight hails from Lagos, Nigeria, where she had her primary and secondary education before coming to the United States for higher education, and she has been writing since she could hold a pen.