In this Book
- The Forgetting Tree: A Rememory
- Book
- 2017
- Published by: Wayne State University Press
- Series: Made in Michigan Writers Series
summary
Rae Paris began writing The Forgetting Tree: A Rememory in 2010, while traveling the United States, visiting sites of racial trauma, horror, and defiance. The desire to do this work came from being a child of parents born and raised in New Orleans during segregation, who ultimately left for California in the late 1950s. After the death of her father in 2011, the fiction Paris had been writing gave way to poetry and short prose, which were heavily influenced by the questions she'd long been considering about narrative, power, memory, and freedom. The need to write this story became even more personal and pressing. While Paris sometimes uses the genre of "memoir" or "hybrid memoir" when referring to her work, in this case the term "rememory," born from Toni Morrison's Beloved, feels most accurate. Paris is driven by the familial and historical spaces and by what happens when we remember seemingly disparate images and moments. The collection is not fully prose or poetry, but more of an extended funeral program or a prayer for those who have passed through us. A perfect blending of prose, poetry, and images, The Forgetting Tree is a unique and thought-provoking collection that argues for a deeper understanding of past and present so that we might imagine a more hopeful, sustainable, and loving future.
Table of Contents
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- Acknowledgments
- pp. ix-x
- Prelude: Office of the Dead
- pp. xi-xii
- How I Write: On Forgetting
- pp. 3-47
- Funeral Mass: Man 1
- p. 49
- Divided Heart: Part I
- pp. 50-52
- The Forgetting Tree
- pp. 55-60
- Sally Hemings
- p. 63
- Mardi Gras
- p. 64
- Christmas Day
- p. 65
- Ballad of Negro Judah
- pp. 66-71
- The Hanging Tree
- pp. 72-74
- Interlude: Not Yet
- pp. 75-76
- Funeral Mass: Man 2
- p. 85
- Uncle Kwanza: November 1
- pp. 86-87
- Funeral Mass: Man 2
- p. 88
- Letter to L.: Unsent
- pp. 91-94
- To the Killers of Us
- pp. 97-98
- Dispatch: Minneapolis
- pp. 105-108
- Dispatch: Dearborn Heights
- pp. 109-110
- On Being a Vine
- pp. 111-112
- Swing Low Suite
- pp. 113-118
- Dispatch: East Lansing
- pp. 119-122
- Divided Heart: Part II
- pp. 125-126
- The Tree of Return
- pp. 127-130
- Funeral Mass: Man 1
- pp. 131-132
- Conversation in Bop #2: To Miss New Orleans
- pp. 133-135
- To Get to the Cemetery
- pp. 136-142
- Give Thanks
- pp. 144-146
Additional Information
ISBN
9780814344279
MARC Record
OCLC
1017610585
Launched on MUSE
2018-01-03
Language
English
Open Access
No