My Life is a Ghost Story

Found poem: a poem made by combining or rearranging fragments of prose, as a speech or story, into a verselike structure.

I am currently reading The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill, which talks about a woman and her life as an African slave. Although I tend not to enjoy reading this type of book, it is surprisingly compelling. Here is a found poem I have written for The Book of Negroes, a compilation of various texts from the book, up to page 108.

This is my name. This is who I am. This is how I got here.

I am branded, and can do nothing to cleanse myself of the scar.

The only things I dream of are the things I can’t have.

I have escaped violent endings.

My life is a ghost story.

Here I am, a broken-down old black woman.

I seem to have trouble dying.

Careful, I may outlast you.

Who wants to die in the anus of a lion?

Nobody. Nobody at all.

What purpose would there be to this life I have lived?

We were lost in a world of water.

The ship was an animal.

We sailed steadily towards the beckoning pink.

Trouble was coming when the moon and sun shared the same sky.

Words fly on wild winds from the mouths of sly people.

Their lips do not yet say my name and their ears do not yet hear my story.

A wise man knows his enemies, and keeps them close.

It seemed safer to lie.

I will write down my story so that it waits like a restful beast,

With lungs breathing and heart beating.

Be a djeli. See, and remember.

Seize your freedom.

We have survived.

One of these people will find my story and pass it along.

And then I believe, I will have lived for a reason.