History
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In the Introduction to this series, I wrote about how I was fascinated by the Great Dismal Swamp. I didn’t include that I also desired to write a verse novel but I was intimidated for a variety of reasons: my limited poetic knowledge of the forms and techniques writers I admire (Derek Walcott) used for their verse…
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It was heady the overheard talk as one beast of burden held another for George to ride to a Congress where Henry was going to wax poetic about liberty and death But I didn’t really need their talk to know about freedom. I just had to remember what life was like before on the Senegambia.…
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1. William Byrd married a 21-year-old widow whose dead husband was the son of a former governor of Virginia. She agreed that William’s first son would be named after him; a heritage the son wore so proudly he went on to become the future founder of Richmond. 2. William Byrd, the son, married Lucy, one…
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What it was like, for me, from my perspective, didn’t survive; wasn’t deemed worthy of documentation. My vagina was turned into a conduit for colonialism. Colonialism went in and when it came out, I was pretty much erased. Any remnant of remembrance was converted to Christianity and I ended up dying so far from my…
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The poor Indians would have had less reason to complain that the English took away their land if they had received it by way of portion with their daughters. A sprightly lover is the most prevailing missionary. If a Moor may be washed white in three generations surely an Indian might have been blanched in…
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I don’t normally incorporate poetic forms in my work but having come across the form of the cento, I thought that sounds interesting. I flipped through several books to pick the words that would form the basis of the piece. The lyricism of Eduardo Galeono’s trilogy Memory of Fire fired my imagination the most for…
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My son loves mythology. I have invested quite a few dollars and I don’t know how much energy in meeting his mythological needs. From D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths to D’Aulaires’s Book of Norse Myths, it seemed as if we had gone around the world of myths but one day, during a geography lesson, he…
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This year I started homeschooling my ten year old son. I won’t go into the whycomes…in this post at least. The other day I took him on the first stage of what I call our Boston Underground Railroad tour. Looking at the list of houses on the site, I determined the William Ingersoll Bowditch house was the…
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Even though I love that the fact that it is no way, shape or form landlocked, Boston has never been my favorite place to live. I’ve never been able to put my finger on exactly why. We (the city and I) have simply been at odds. Despite that fact, I currently reside in Greater Boston;…
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Seri Jeni: It was after this [the removal of the population from areas where they supported the freedom fighters] that one of my children joined the struggle. What happened was that she woke up early in the morning and got ready the various things he used to sell. Then she changed into a denim dress,…
Tichaona Chinyelu 