From the Archive – Page 2 – Michigan Quarterly Review

From the Archive

portrait of Sally Heming, yellowish

From the Diary of Sally Hemings

“White waves—a bitter dream—my mother’s mother in the lower deck—wet and cold in the blue-black night.

Dahomey child, betrothed when she was young, before she knew of white men or the sea.

A thin veil of fog. Her family brings a farmer, a boy not yet a man, to marry with the business of the home. Each dawn she climbs the palm tree and touches wine with her hands. A feast prepared. The gods must have a hand in this! A young goat sacrificed, okra, oranges, a basket of yams laid at her feet. She stands with old friends in new finery, her buba and iro an odd-colored blue, hair in beads, piled to the sky, tapping the palm wine from the palm tree.

Kidnapped before the roast meat was cold, snatched away to America; she was a stranger to the sea. White waves in the blue-black sea. Now a voyage of a different sort. Maria won’t go unless I come along. White waves in the blue-black sea till we land in port.”

From the Diary of Sally Hemings Read More »

“White waves—a bitter dream—my mother’s mother in the lower deck—wet and cold in the blue-black night.

Dahomey child, betrothed when she was young, before she knew of white men or the sea.

A thin veil of fog. Her family brings a farmer, a boy not yet a man, to marry with the business of the home. Each dawn she climbs the palm tree and touches wine with her hands. A feast prepared. The gods must have a hand in this! A young goat sacrificed, okra, oranges, a basket of yams laid at her feet. She stands with old friends in new finery, her buba and iro an odd-colored blue, hair in beads, piled to the sky, tapping the palm wine from the palm tree.

Kidnapped before the roast meat was cold, snatched away to America; she was a stranger to the sea. White waves in the blue-black sea. Now a voyage of a different sort. Maria won’t go unless I come along. White waves in the blue-black sea till we land in port.”

Image of Birds flying in black and white

The Generosity of Arpeggios and Ravens

20 years ago MQR published the first of two special issues on the Secret Spaces of Childhood. The following poem, from Thylias Moss, is available via our archives. The Generosity of Arpeggios and Ravens Please note: The following is an arpeggio. It was possible to leap from world to world using the sturdiest balloons I’d

The Generosity of Arpeggios and Ravens Read More »

20 years ago MQR published the first of two special issues on the Secret Spaces of Childhood. The following poem, from Thylias Moss, is available via our archives. The Generosity of Arpeggios and Ravens Please note: The following is an arpeggio. It was possible to leap from world to world using the sturdiest balloons I’d

Kans grass, Black and white image.

Remembering

This poem originally appeared in the Spring 1980 Issue of MQR. It is available via our archives. Image Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons: By Abhijit Kar Gupta from Kolkata, India – Kans Grass (কাশ ফুল, kash phool)

Remembering Read More »

This poem originally appeared in the Spring 1980 Issue of MQR. It is available via our archives. Image Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons: By Abhijit Kar Gupta from Kolkata, India – Kans Grass (কাশ ফুল, kash phool)

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