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Publication Date
10-11-2024
Description
When your stories flow from the brackish waters of the Gulf South, where the land and water merge, your narratives cannot be contained or constrained by the Eurocentric conventions of autobiography. When your story is rooted in the histories of your West African, Creek, and Creole ancestors, as well as your Black, feminist, and queer communities, you must create a biomythography that transcends linear time and extends beyond the pages of a book.
Biomythography Bayou is more than just a book of memoir; it is a ritual for conjuring queer embodied knowledges and decolonial perspectives. Blending a rich gumbo of genres—from ingredients such as praise songs, folk tales, recipes, incantations, and invocations—it also includes a multimedia component, with “bayou tableau” images and audio recording links. Inspired by such writers as Audre Lorde, Zora Neale Hurston, and Octavia Butler, Mel Michelle Lewis draws from the well of her ancestors in order to chart a course toward healing Afrofutures. Showcasing the nature, folklore, dialect, foodways, music, and art of the Gulf’s coastal communities, Lewis finds poetic ways to celebrate their power and wisdom.
Keywords
Biomythography, Black studies, gender, African American Studies, sexuality, Women’s Studies, feminism, Mardi Gras, poetry, queer, decolonial, Gulf Coast, West African, indigenous, Creole Afrofuturist, nature, folklore, dialect, foodways, oral history, Alabama, Mobile Bay, Bayou, New Orleans, French Quarter, Mississippi River, Griot, Zora Neale Hurston, Gwendolyn Brooks, Audre Lorde, Alexis DeVeaux, Octavia Butler, Dorothy Allison, Afrofuturism, Poarch Band of Creek Indians, Dagara culture, Patrice Malidoma Somé, Bayou la Batre, Muscogee Creek, Moor Mother, Claudia Rankine
Rights
Copyright © 2025 by Mel Michelle Lewis All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Bucknell University Press, Hildreth-Mirza Hall, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA 17837-2005. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law
Language
eng
ISBN
9781684484843