Castaway.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Christians,︠ Yvette, Author.

Christiansèe, Yvette., Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women, Black--Poetry.

Women, Black.

Slave trade--Poetry.

Slave trade.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (129 p.)

Place of Publication:

Durham, NC, USA Duke University Press 19991101

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In Castaway Yvette Christiansë presents an epic yet fragmented poetic story set off the coast of Africa on the island of St. Helena: Napoleon Bonaparte’s final place of exile, a port of call for the slave trade, and birthplace of the poet’s grandmother. Amid echoes of racialized identity and issues of displacement, the poems in Castaway speak with a multiplicity of voices—from Ferñao Lopez (the island’s first exile) and Napoleon to that of a contemporary black woman. Castaway is simultaneously a song of discovery, an anthem of conquest, and a tortured lamentation of exiles and slaves.Instead of offering a linear narrative, Christiansë renders the poems as if they were emerging from the pages of imaginary books, documents now disrupted and scattered. An emperor’s point of view is juxtaposed with the perspectives of various explorers, sailors, and unknown slaves until finally they all open upon the book’s “castaway,” the authorial female voice that negotiates a way to write about love and desire after centuries of oppression and exploitation.Daring and sophisticated, Castaway challenges and captivates the reader with not only its lyrical richness and conceptual depth but also its implicit and haunting reflections on diaspora and postcolonialism. It will be highly regarded by readers and writers of poetry and will appeal to those engaged with issues of race, gender, exile, multiculturalism, colonialism, and history.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

The Name of the Island

The Island Sings Its Name

And All Things Come to Pass

On Being Restless

Letter to General D'Albuquerque On the Pleasures of Taste

Letter to General D'Albuquerque On the Pleasures of Touch

Letter to General D'Albuquerque - On Desire

Letter to General D'Albuquerque - On Solitude

Letter to General D'Albuquerque - On Forgiveness

For the Devout Mouth

For the Record

Sleigh Ride

The Enemies of Progress

Necessary Things

The Emperor Considers the Fate of His Book

Last Battles

A Very Sick Man

One More Mile, One More Town

Face to Face

Brotherhood

And What of Africa?

Another Strange Night

For the Arrival of a Serious Enemy

Gold

Sunday School

The Sleeper

Blow the Wind Southerly

And Bring Him to Me

Courtship

Fire on Board

Man in a Room

What the Girl Who Was a Cabin Boy Heard or Said-Which Is Not Clear

Geography Lesson

On Hearing of the Exiled Prophet

In the Hull

Under the Feet of Angels

When All Else Fails

Felony

Contagion

The Enlightenment Sees Its Face in a Different Light

Even When They Smile They Smoulder

Nightwatch

A Dictionary of Survival

Memorial

Floating

Middle Passage

She Feels the Vanishing Sickness Move behind Her Navel

The Face of the Deep

Eclipse

Adrift

In the Maw

In The Wake

An Easter Confession, of Sorts

For Strength in the Face of a Powerful Enemy

Desire

Devilry

Aubade

For a Lover Who Keeps to Another Hemisphere

Sweeter and Dearer

Is It Not Sweet?

Southerly, Southerly

Moon

Now That She Is a Woman Herself

With the Art of Birds

She Observes the Blue Bird

A Riddle to Save Face

The Cabin Girl Sees on All Sides Evidence of the Dream

She Looks Up and Points

The Beautiful Flood

What Is Out There?

Some of the Women

Behind My Back

She Confesses

Land Ahead

Headwind

The Cabin Girl Sings, of Love, Reluctantly and into an Empty Sky

And When I Write the Muscles in My Chest Move as if in Flight

The Voyage Out

St. Helena-Time Line

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 12. Dez 2020)

ISBN:

9780822396208

0822396203

OCLC:

1058397321