Roadmap - Monica Prince
Product Details:
Paperback : 90 Pages
ISBN : 9781951631291
Cover design: Jessica Nirvana Ram
About the Book:
In this radical twenty-first century choreopoem, Dorian, a young American Black man, is tasked by an ancestral spirit to thwart his inevitable murder. He traces his family tree, from his grandmother to his offspring, uncovering secrets of sex work, self-harm, and assault alongside snapshots of #BlackBoyJoy. Guided by The Novelist, an omniscient muse, and her troupe of dancers, Dorian must interrogate his legacy, forgive his past, and reckon with being Black in modern America. He tries on different selves and possible futures in his increasing desperation to experience the luxury of growing old and finding solace despite institutional racism declaring him a threat. Through the poetry, dance, and song of Roadmap, will Dorian overcome the odds or become another hashtag?
About the Author:
Monica Prince teaches activist and performance writing at Susquehanna University. Her books include How to Exterminate the Black Woman: A Choreopoem, Instructions for Temporary Survival, and Letters from the Other Woman. Born to Guyanese parents and obsessed with maxi skirts with pockets, she writes, teaches, directs, and performs choreopoems all over the country, but is mostly found on Twitter @poetic_moni or on her website, monicaprince.com.
“Monica Prince’s Roadmap is indeed an extraordinary blueprint of the holy and perilous terrain of Black life and Black love. This slim volume of choreographed poetry feels epic in its power to unearth deep complexities at the intersections of shame and trauma, fear and freedom, hashtags and hallelujahs. In these pages, I am reminded of the god Ntozake Shange told me I would find in myself. And by the end, I couldn’t do anything but shout. Roadmap is a revelation.”
“Monica Prince provides a haunting route through hurt and hope. Roadmap guides the reader through the Black experience, linking us through the past and present with character and imagery. Prince gives us a view of what is and the possibility of what is to be. This book looks real good on your bookshelf. Get it wherever you can.”
“Roadmap is a clear shot ringing into the dark of Black survival. Weaving voices of ancestors and loved ones, Prince stages the likelihood that a young Black man will persevere beyond middle-age. A necessary read and theatrical tool, Roadmap targets racism in America.”
“In Roadmap, Monica Prince channels the spirits that undergird our cultural conversations about race, relationships, and inheritance, taking the reader on a profound exploration that balances narrative and atmosphere with deftness. It may be the most impressive work yet in Prince’s stellar catalogue of choreopoems.”
“Prince’s vision in Roadmap shakes us awake, breaks our racing, aching hearts, and recalibrates the brain itself.”
“Prince weaves together commanding choreography and remarkable poetry to track the life of Dorian, a young Black man in America; his journey through love, loss, pain, and perseverance grips you from the opening and doesn’t let go.”
“Monica Prince’s Roadmap is alive on the page, with its beats, silences, and chorus of voices that make me feel I’m in the audience experiencing the staged version of this beautifully-written choreopoem.”
“Roadmap is a lyrical tapestry of the danger lingering behind being Black in the United States.”
“Roadmap tells the story of a perilous journey between the weight of legacy and the determination toward the future. Throughout the choreopoem, Dorian negotiates the seemingly inevitable inheritance of violence and statistics that continue to stalk him, while the urgency of love and hope urges its light through the cracks with its own kind of force. As he carves a roadmap into his skin to remember all he carries, he creates another in becoming a partner and a father, choosing to find, or even create, a different landscape for himself and his family. As author Monica Prince reminds us in Roadmap, “There are Black people in the future.”
“In Roadmap, choreopoet Monica Prince lays bare the sins of our nation. What joy, what life, is possible when racism is this deviled sun watching over us from birth to death? What hope is there to have? At times haunting and unsettling, Roadmap is fueled by a roaring anger and hard love. Prince dares us to confront our past and present, because without doing so there is no promised future.”