Equiano was an 11 year old boy who was captured and sold into slavery

Walcott's poems are about the natural disaster of Hurricane Camille hitting the Gulf of Mexico in 1969, while Ward writes about the effects of Hurricane Katrina hitting Mississippi.

Walcott's poems include "themes of isolation and the achievement of identity through loneliness."

He eventually wrote an autobiography about the institution of slavery and defends African culture

Relates to the setting, since both the poem "The Gulf" and "Sing, Unburied, Sing" take place in similar if not the same location

What if distance from the subject was a question of proximity of information within a text , a craft and structure decision by the author, to create associations and to forge connections. In this case, we would be looking at how characters align --> Kayla and Richie, thus Jojo and Pop? ✒

page 130 Kayla vomits, Commotion in the car, Richie stands outside the car, p 131 "The bird, the bird" Kayla says and "I'm going home." Richie says.

page 126 - Richie's story, "I'm going home." 127 - Kayla, "See the birds?" and "All the birds go bye," and "My tummy hurts"

We are given a multitude of perspectives. Some from "Spirits" others from living people.What if these perspectives are meant to make the reader question their personal beliefs in the spiritual.

The story becomes fragmented as it switches from narrative perspective between chapters

Story switches settings (Time period) and is shown by italics in the text

"I want to tell her: You don't know what you doing. And then: You ain't Mam. But I don't. The worry bubbling up in me like water boiling over the lip of a pot,

Readers empathize with Richie because we learn about his character at a young age in the beginning and then we feel sorry for him later on when we learn he was repeatedly whipped.

Page 150 - Leonie wonders what their next possible child will look like if they had another. She thinks, "if we have another baby, we could get it right."

I don't want Leonie giving her that. I know that's what she think she need to do, but she ain't Mam. She ain't Pop. She ain't never healed nothing or grown nothing in her life, and she don't know" (107).

"The bird, the bird," she says. the boy leans into the window and blurs at the edges. He says: "I'm going home."

this allows readers to learn about a character who will appear later on

Page 147 - Leonie thinks, "It feels good to be mean, to speak past past the baby I cant hit and let that anger touch another. The one I'm never good enough for. Never Mama for..."

Page - 147 Leonie is frustrated by the fact that she isn't as good of a mother like her mother was.

Page 130- "Leonie looks disappointed he's stopped touching her and leans across the seat towards him." Leonie is jealous.