Summary

The title poem of the collection -- "Voyage of the Sable Venus" -- begins with an epigraph from Reginald Shepherd, which states: "And never to forget beauty, however strange or difficult" (34). Lewis prefaces the poem with a prologue, which explains her methodology in writing the piece, as well as some of her intentions for it. She states that the piece is made up only of the "titles, catalog entries, or exhibit descriptions" of pieces of Western art that depict a Black female figure (35). She only altered the grammar of the titles, but did not rearrange the words or play with syntax in any other way. When she discovered that some libraries had edited their catalogs, replacing words like "Negro" and "Colored" with "African-American," she included the original language (35). At the end of the piece she includes art by Black female and queer artists...