AncesTREE

AncesTREE is a book of poetry by Dr. Lindsay Gary that traces her ancestral connections through trees and their roots—both metaphorical and physical—across Africa and its global Diaspora. Through intimate, place-based poems, Gary explores memory, land, lineage, and environmental reverence, positioning trees as living witnesses to African and Diasporic histories. Each poem is dedicated to a specific tree and reflects Gary’s personal and ancestral relationship to a particular region, including the U.S. South, the Caribbean and Latin America, and the African continent. Organized into three sections—The South, The Diaspora, and The Continent—the book moves between Houston and South Louisiana and the greater Gulf Coast, across the Americas, and throughout Africa, revealing interconnected histories shaped by remembrance, resistance, and return. AncesTREE is illustrated by watercolor artist Ashley Lilly, whose original paintings accompany each poem and deepen the book’s meditation on nature, culture, and memory. Together, the poems and illustrations emphasize long-standing African traditions that understand land and environment as sacred and ancestral. The foreword is written by Dr. Alicia Odewale, African Diaspora archaeologist, National Geographic Explorer, and Director of the Black Heritage Tree Project. AncesTREE is Dr. Lindsay Gary’s second published book and her first book of poetry, as well as the inaugural title from Afrikanah Book Club Press. AncesTREE is funded in part by the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.