The poems in thunder makes us explore heritage, faith, and womanhood in the American South. They navigate the tension of cherishing the world we’re raised in while also wrestling with the ways it can eventually harm us. In this soulful debut, Whitney Rio-Ross illustrates a woman grappling with the thorny parts of the landscape and family she’s always known, a grappling that yields a hard-fought yet enduring commitment to the work of clear-eyed love.