Review As an avid bird watcher, Ruth has honed her observational skills. In this book of poems, her perceptive attention is focused on the women who have come before her. Capturing distinct voices and character traits, long-hidden family secrets are brought into the light. #metoo is working its way through the family tree. Women of strength, endurance, and tenacity come to life on these pages. Julie Martin, poet and teacher. After poring through census records, letters between cousins and old newspaper reports, poet Ruth McArthur has painstakingly stitched her family tree into fascinating lyric and story, centering the nearly invisible lives of mothers, daughters, and (not quite) wives. Conjuring the folksy voices of women all impacted by one man's wide swath, she explores how trauma carries down the generations and how it can be halted. As women continue to build the #metoo movement, Persistence reminds us justice in the present demands we honor the past as well, "knitting broken bits toward wholeness."Sarah Sadie, founder of Studio Sadie, author of We are traveling through dark at tremendous speeds About the Author Ruth is a grannie and poet living in the Texas hill country with her husband and a varying number of dogs. She writes about family and the urban sprawl that is rushing in from the next county. Her work has appeared in Blue Heron Review, Ocotillo Review, Underwood, and Voices de la Luna. This is her first book.