
Biomythography Bayou
Mel Michelle Lewis(Author)
Bucknell University Press,U.S.
Published on 11. October 2024
Book
Hardback
214 pages
978-1-68448-482-9 (ISBN)
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.
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.
Reviews / Votes
"A bountiful feast of a book. . . . The first thing you notice about Biomythography Bayou is its fecundity, its rich and generous voice. Yet not a word is wasted. Right from the start, you feel the presence of ancestors, their interwoven histories, and the effulgence of Lewis as a Black, queer woman with a complex heritage. . . . [An] effusive celebration of a book recommended to readers of all stripes, ages, and walks of life." (Washington Independent Review of Books) "In Biomythography Bayou, Mel Michelle Lewis renders a compelling literary gumbo with which to read across the mix of multiple theories of knowledge, including those found in autobiography, folk traditions, black feminist praxis, poetry, scholarship, nature, photography, and black queer studies. Beneath it all, the question emerges: where did the conversation around black futurity begin? In our mothers' mouths, in our ancestors' breath, in the demand between not what is but what is possible? Written in language both erudite and of the folk, Biomythography Bayou invites more expansive engagement with Saidiya Hartman's 'critical fabulations' and Toni Morrison's 'literary archaeology.'" - Alexis De Veaux (author of JesusDevil: The Parables) "Biomythography Bayou is a stunningly beautiful medicinal offering that I did not know I needed. The recipes, story-telling, poetry, and honoring of origin, memory, and ancestry are profoundly compelling. I could not put this book down. Take your time, savor, and surrender to the magic of Mel Michelle Lewis." - gina Breedlove (author of The Vibration of Grace: Sound Healing Rituals for Liberation) "This innovative and tender manuscript is an absolute pleasure to read. Sensually Southern, fem(me)ininely curving, and rhythmically grounded, Biomythography Bayou is an everyday praise song to Black queer spirit and the landscapes that raise us." - Omise'eke Natasha Tinsley (author of Ezili's Mirrors: Imagining Black Queer Genders) "Biomythography Bayou is a beautiful assembly and chorus of experimental prose that evocatively explores kinship, a region, ecologies, Black queer longing, and politics. It is an elegant and spirit-filled work that summons and communes with ancestors and the living who continue to quilt a Black lesbian and queer writing tradition. Biomythography Bayou experiments with and bends form in ways that invite and inspire more innovation. This work is a stunning contribution to Black lesbian and queer southern and diasporic writing." - Tiffany Lethabo King (author of The Black Shoals: Offshore Formations of Black and Native Studies) "Lewis' Biomythography Bayou is an explosive dance party of culture, identity, and word magic, and above all, it is a truth-telling serum. A balm for generations lost and those voices unheard, this is a project that celebrates, contests, and frames family and legacy in a decolonial context that breathes new life into the waterways and bayous of the Gulf Coast. From Louisiana to Baltimore, readers will be on a multi-dimensional journey to rootedness in land, healing, and cultural recovery. A powerful work that sits alongside a growing collection and chorus of voices, artists, and scholars reweaving Creole Indigenous, African Indigenous, and queer-Afro-Indigenous lifeways. A must-read!" - Andrew Jolivette (author of Gumbo Circuitry: Poetic Routes, Gastronomic Legacies)More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Product notice
Laminated cover
Illustrations
11 color and 4 B-W
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
64 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-68448-482-9 (9781684484829)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
MEL MICHELLE LEWIS (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, teacher, and environmental justice practitioner. Their creative work explores nature writing themes in rural coastal settings through the lens of Black, Creole, Afro-Indigenous, and queer embodied knowledges. Originally from Bayou La Batre on the Alabama Gulf Coast, they currently reside in Baltimore. Read more here: melmichellelewis.com
Content
Acknowledgments
Land and Labor Acknowledgment
Conjure Portal
Part 1: Water
Elemental Essay: Water
Catfish Mardi Gras Queen
Bayou Honeyman
Water Recipe
Praise Song for Blue Crab
Part 2: Fire
Elemental Essay: Fire
Tongues of Fire
Twin Flames on the Other Side of Fire
Ashy
Ceasefire
Jazz Fired
Part 3: Earth
Elemental Essay: Earth
Praise Song for the Road Home
What on Earth
Erosion
Who Got the Body?
Part 4: Mineral
Elemental Essay: Mineral
Salt
Red Clay Recipe
Indian Shell Mound Park
Oyster Shuck
Part 5: Nature
Elemental Essay: Nature
Spell for a Bee
Thunder Cake
Nature Preserve
Estuary
Storm Warning
Return Portal
Notes
Bibliography
Index