Table of Contents

1. PREFACE: to know where I’m going

2. kentucky is my fate

3. mountains: consumed by suffering

4. touching the earth

5. reclamation and reconciliation

6. to be whole and holy

7. again – segregation must end

8. representations of whiteness in the black imagination

9. drive through tobacco

10. earthbound: on solid ground

11. an aesthetics of blackness: strange and oppositional

12. inspired eccentricity

13. a place where the soul can rest

14. aesthetic inheritances: history worked by hand

15. piecing it all together

16. on being a kentucky writer

17. returning to the wound

18. healing talk: a conversation

19. take back the night – remake the present

20. habits of the heart

21. a community of care

About the Author

bell hooks is a writer and critic who has taught most recently at Berea College in Kentucky, where she is Distinguished Professor in Residence. Among her many books are the feminist classic Ain't I A Woman, the dialogue (with Cornel West) Breaking Bread, the children's books Happy to Be Nappy and Be Boy Buzz, the memoir Bone Black (Holt), and the general interest titles All About Love, Rock My Soul, and Communion. She has published six titles with Routledge: We Real Cool, Where We Stand, Teaching to Transgress, Teaching Community, Outlaw Culture, and Reel to Real.