Bocas

This part includes seven essays that take the Sea as their overarching theme. Pieces include “Caribea,” “Bocas,” “Icacos,” “Palo Seco,” “Mayaro,” “Basse-Terre,” and “Home” and involve more experimentation with form to highlight the deeply mercurial dynamics of “arrival” as a phenomenon of “being” and of “coming to be.” The Sea, therefore, operates as a metaphorical and material element in the conception and articulation of “arrival.” As the section moves “inland” to the notion of “home” in the essay of the same name, the section interrogates the limits of the Sea and the broader environment for making meaning and operating as a viable element of nonfiction. This is communicated as a dialogue between photographs—of the coast, of driftwood, and, more granularly, of sand and bones—and the written word.