"There are thousands of missing women in America. There are thousands of women who have been murdered, yet their case has gone ignored, forgotten, cold."
Into the Forest and all the Way Through is a slim volume of true crime poetry that focuses on 100 of the thousands of missing women and young girls who are missing or murdered in America. At 156 pages, I thought that I would be able to read this book in one sitting, but I was very wrong. I could only read a few poems a night because of the heaviness of the loss of these women. From the prologue, I felt the gravity of what Ms. Pelayo set out to tell the world.
Focusing on stories of women and girls from every walk of life and every state in the union, one can tell that Pelayo has immersed herself in their stories: children taken by people they trusted to protect them, a teenager who was killed by her own stepfather and still not at rest, women with disabilities who possibly just wandered away from their homes never to return. Women who were hurt by those they loved and trusted the most.
From the first poem on, I felt compelled to look up each and every victim shared in this book. Seeing their faces and reading pleas from family members still looking for their loved ones, looking for justice, and looking to bring their daughter, mother, aunt or grandmother home to rest was haunting. I can still see their faces, frozen in time, to a time when they were still safe.
Part of Pelayo's advocacy in writing this book was to draw attention to the epidemic of violence against women of color. The sheer number of stories shared in this book of Hispanic, Black, Asian, and Native American women who go missing or are murdered are mind boggling. These cases are not shared in the media as often as other cases, and soon go cold or are forgotten.
Into the Forest and all the Way Through is a necessary and important read, and the way Ms. Pelayo sees each and every woman and child and brings them to life to share their story is masterful.
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