First published 2005
The poet steps into a cab and meets a driver who theorizes about space and time travel. His amateur physics sparks her thoughts on artistic ambition and audacity. She travels to Triolet, a Creole village on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, where she contemplates the ironies of the slave trade and its shared legacy across peoples. Yearning to take her family somewhere "sanctified by the Negro soul," she finds herself in Bahia, Brazil. There she joins a theater director, jazz musician, retired pilot, activist, university student, and two enigmatic African American women. Each pilgrim shares their story in rhymed couplets as they move through this spiritual landscape. The poet dances surrounded by strangers, feeling their warmth flow into hers, bodies swaying to drum music in reverent silence. These journeys transform her understanding of spirit and community through the power of travel to deepen wisdom.
Genres: travel, african-american, poetry, cultural
Vibes: intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, spiritual-journey
Setting: Mauritius, Bahia, Brazil
Period: 20th-century
64 pages · Paperback · LSU Press
Content warnings: slavery