Outskirts Press, INC.

A HYBRID MEMOIR: THE MERGING OF WORD AND FABRIC

Imagine a story quilt, consisting of twenty-five 12”x12” blocks, each symbolically depicting a seminal happening in your life. The format of Block Time simulates the fashioning of such a quilt. Whereas the narration satisfies the requisite five W’s of reportage (who, what, why, when, where), the fabric’s figurative designs go beyond the word. Their components — e.g., color and configuration — limn what is ineffable. Stitch together the twenty-five episodes and the twenty-five blocks and you will see the essence of a life. The accounts of hauling up drinking water in a pail from a well, of a red alert just shy of the DMZ, of narrowly losing one’s virginity, of a perilous journey through America’s most dangerous ghetto do interrelate. A quilt is made, the stories are told, and you have a delineation of a life.