Kin Types by Luanne Castle was the first book that intrigued me about writing short pieces about ancestors. What a creative way to approach genealogy. I kept returning to this one, which was an early inspiration for Meadowlark Songs: A Motherline Legacy.
The stories of ancestors help keep their memories alive. Luanne Castle does that regularly on her blog called The Family Kalamazoo That’s where I learned about her Kin Types, a slim volume of 19 poems and flash prose, in which she captures individuals with a vignette or glimpse of well-chosen details that give you goosebumps, even a lump in your throat. They are poignant stories, even difficult ones.
I especially enjoyed one about family resemblances in old photographs, noting the names, dates, and places as her forebears crossed the ocean from The Netherlands and Germany and settled in Michigan.
What a clever name for this book. Tintypes are old photos on metal, usually small ones. I’ll bet the one on the cover of Luanne’s book is from a tintype.
Luanne Castle
Eric Hoffer Award Finalist, Kin Types is a collection of lyric poetry, prose poetry, and flash prose that imaginatively retells the lives of private individuals from previous generations. Using family history research, the writer has reconstructed the stories of women and men from Michigan to Illinois to the Netherlands. Read together, the pieces create a history of women dealing with infant mortality, vanity, housewife skills, divorce, secret abortion, the artist versus mother dilemma, mysterious death, wife beating, and a brave heroine saving a family’s home.
Luanne’s Kin Types is featured in Meadowlark Songs on page 141 under Favorite Resources.