This collection of short works illustrates the growth of a remarkable writer. Opening the volume is the much-acclaimed autobiographical essay, "From the Poets in the Kitchen," which pays homage to the hard-working, storytelling West Indian women who serve as her muses--women who fought back against oppression and invisibility using the only weapon at their command: the spoken word. Such women appear in her luminous short stories, which travel from Brooklyn to Barbados and back again.