ballast

By Quenton Baker

A poetic sequence using the 1841 slave revolt aboard the brig Creole as a lens through which to view the vitality of Black lives and the afterlife of slavery.

In 1841, the only successful, large-scale revolt of American-born enslaved people erupted on the ship Creole. 135 people escaped chattel slavery that day. The event was recounted in US Senate documents, including letters exchanged between US and British consulates in The Bahamas and depositions from the white crew on the ship. There is no known record or testimony from the 135 people who escaped. Their story has been lost to time and indifference. Quenton Baker’s ballast is an attempt at incomplete redress.

With imagination, deep empathy, and skilled and compelling lyricism, Baker took a black marker to those Senate documents and culled a poetic recount of the Creole revolt. Layers of ink connect readers to Baker’s poetic process: (re)phrasing the narrative of the state through a dexterous process of hands-on redactions.

ballast is a relentless, wrenching, and gorgeously written book, a defiant reclamation of one of the most important but overlooked events in US history, and an essential contribution to contemporary poetry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Haymarket Books
• Release date: Apr 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9781642599350

Book preview

© 2023 Quenton Baker

Published in 2023 by

Haymarket Books

P.O. Box 180165

Chicago, IL 60618

773-583-7884

www.haymarketbooks.org

[e-mail]

ISBN: 978-1-64259-935-0

Distributed to the trade in the US through Consortium Book Sales and Distribution (www.cbsd.com) and internationally through Ingram Publisher Services International (www.ingramcontent.com).

This book was published with the generous support of Lannan Foundation and Wallace Action Fund.

Special discounts are available for bulk purchases by organizations and institutions. Please email [e-mail] for more information.

Cover design by Jamie Kerry.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

Contents

ballast

Washing the Bones

Acknowledgements

Bibliography

Note

The first 94 pages of poems are redactions of Senate Document 51 of the Second Session of the 27th United States Congress in 1842. The document contains letters back and forth from the United States and British consulates in the Bahamas and sworn depositions from the white crew aboard the Creole. It was on that ship, in 1841, that 135 American-born enslaved people revolted and were able to escape chattel slavery. It is the only large-scale revolt of American-born enslaved peoples that did not end in capture, torture, or capital punishment. There is no known recorded speech