( Ghost Gestures )

Book excerpt: Literary Nonfiction. Poetry. Drama African & African American Studies. Latinx Studies. Women's Studies. Winner of the 2019 Gold Line Press Nonfiction Chapbook Contest. How can you return to where you've never been? ( GHOST GESTURES ) conjures diaspora hauntings and traces black bodies across space and time. In Dakar and Banjul, Detroit and Montreal, Tlaxcala and Río Piédras, Gabrielle Civil showcases black bodies dancing, hiding, and re-emerging. In performance writing, she invokes the doll, the queen, and the ghost to explore where black women have never and always been. She plays hide-and-seek with her own transforming body and tackles history, identity, art, and desire. "bring this here / bring this back / keep this here / bring us back / bring us here / bring us back to this." Incorporating chants, notations, images, and scores, ( GHOST GESTURES ) will spirit you away.