Root Work Journal - Summoning Flight - Volume 2, Issue 1
The Book of Sojourners
Bl3ssing Oshun Ra
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.47106/12576336
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Set in the Bronx, NY, and rooted in a poetics drawn from the heartfelt oratures of the spirituals, work songs, field hollers, this opening chapter of The Book of Sojourners is an allegory that immerses us in a world strained by various ecological, health, and other crises, where we meet Safiya, a Black teenage girl, who yearns to escape her Aunt's strict religious household so she can find community members with whom she can freely be trans, and her brother Malcolm, who looks to conspiracy theories and stories about people who could fly rather than his Aunt's Christian beliefs to understand the day's vicissitudes, setting the stage for their epic journey into a struggle for self-elevation.
My name is Bl3ssing Oshun Ra (they/she), a nonbinary and disabled, transfeminine tomboi, poet, musician, educator. I am a lifelong creative, inspired by my mother's love for science and storytelling. My craft merges commentary on environmental racism and human health with themes drawn from African spiritual or speculative traditions, an aesthetic which I term "Blue-fi," (sci-fi steeped in the Blues).
Citation: Oshun Ra, B. (2022). The Book of Sojourners. Root Work Journal, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.47106/12576336