Additional information
by Julia Bouwsma (Author), Afaa M. Weaver (Foreword by)
WINNER OF THE MAINE LITERARY AWARD FOR POETRY
FINALIST FOR THE JULIE SUK AWARD
SELECTED AS ONE OF NPR'S 2018 GREAT READS
ONE OF BOOK RIOT'S 50 MUST READ POETRY COLLECTIONS OF 2019
In 1912 the State of Maine forcibly evicted an interracial community of roughly forty-five people from Malaga Island, a small island off the coast of Phippsburg, Maine. Though Malaga had been their home for generations, nine residents (including the entire Marks family) were committed to the Maine School for the Feeble Minded in Pownal, Maine. The others struggled to find homes on other islands or on the mainland, where they were often unwelcome. The Malaga school was dismantled and rebuilt as a chapel on another island. Seventeen graves were exhumed from the Malaga cemetery, consolidated into five caskets, and reburied at the Maine School for the Feeble Minded. Just one year after the start of the eviction proceedings, the Malaga community was erased.
Author Biography
Julia Bouwsma is Maine's Poet Laureate (2021-2026) and is the author of Work by Bloodlight (Cider Press Review, 2017).
