March 21, 2025 • 13 mins
In this special bonus episode, Emmy-nominated poet Christell Victoria Roach honors World Poetry Day with a powerful reading of her poem MANIFEST. This deeply personal piece reflects on family history, resilience, and cultural identity, weaving a lyrical journey through generations of survival, migration, and self-discovery. Tune in for an evocative performance that celebrates the power of storytelling and the enduring strength of ancestral ties.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Ready fording. Okay, So we are back with the incredible
Chrystal Victoria Roach and today she's gonna give us a
little gift.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Manifest Bound for Nassau, Bahamas, whereof Willie Franks is master
cruelest of the American nineteen nineteen. I am from the
place where the only light comes from God, Sun, Baby,
Star child. Mama drove to the keys land of my
(00:42):
ancestors with me in her belly. Was it Lucretia born
in eighteen sixty three, dead by eighteen ninety nine, flying
her back to the city Child of Miami? Dongo ghosts
in the sea? Did Melvis know a storm was coming
and make Mama bleed so she would get to step in.
Mama was in the hospital for months. She needed blood
(01:02):
else she would labor with water. Legend has it all
of Miami gave a blood boat for the baby kept
us afloat to the berth. The story does not start
with me surviving my own birth or the birthing sweet
where Mamma mourned while the family gathered at the wake.
The story does not start with the Frank's girls, the
first of my blood to outlive, survival, or grandmother waking
(01:24):
up from a coma like it was a nap or.
The sisters with two palatial homes on Northwest sixty sixth Streets,
sharing a yard across the wall on Twelfth Avenue in
Liberty City. We'd drive over the town to the homes
of our birth as they emptied year by year, daughter
by son by sister. I am ashamed. I grew up
(01:46):
with elders and did not know to ask them questions.
I remember everything. Nana gray heads, slow steps, women who
made grace of age, women who knew they were dying,
so they made a riddle of their lives. It was
Aunt wille La who filled my skinny arm with gold,
but I was too young to know the value of
an heirloom. Uncle Vaughan, Nana's first baby, died at my birth.
(02:10):
You can't tell me I don't know him. I recognize
his face. I've held his secrets. I imagine the ancestors said,
a life for a life, blood bonds every day. I
become the woman of his dreams as I create and
love freely. My neck is heavy with the gold I
wear to match my father, the keepsake he wears to
(02:30):
honor his brother so he can still see him shining
in the mirror, dressing Daddy to the nines. I know
that somewhere in my blood, somebody's child was captured. I
grit my teeth, I taste the blood, the metal. This
body was never fashioned for chains. I am ashamed. I
saw grandmother in a photo album and I questioned her
naked neck, where's her necklace? Her chain? I don't know
(02:55):
how to explain what it is I feel in Overtown,
where like any fools skins in school on the metro,
I remember saying, what's so historic about historic over Town?
Never once did I look it up. It took me
three decades to see Zora and Neilhurston baptizing the Bahamian babies,
and Biscayne Bassing and Biddy Biddy ben my stories in turn,
(03:16):
loose the rooster and hold the hand, Zora learn the
song's grandmother and them saying as childs then wrote it
for me to hear their voices. Wish I had a needle,
fine as I could sew, saw my baby to my
side and down the road I'd go. The static crackles
across the archival record words come to me in waves,
and I am charged with listening. I am guilty with curiosity.
(03:37):
I've stolen history from institutions that know the names of
all my dead. It wasn't just my grades staying in
the Central Negro District after playing in them racist hotels
on Sundown Beach, South Beach, Billy and Nat Langston and
louis Etta and Lionel. My ghost town has people in it.
(03:59):
People shadrack Ward, my first patriarch, who built a house
strong enough to be remembered. He brought Lucretia from Key
West to Lemon City. He married Victoria and blessed his
daughter's hand to Victoria's little brother, Willy. He brought land,
He worked it. He went with Willy to buy his
first boat in Nassau. He told his son in law
to make something of himself. He told his brother in
(04:22):
law to make something for himself. Daddy Ward opened up
his place to people who needed rest, a place to
lie their heads, a place to drink, and Willy sold
rum from the boats. He didn't sink. It was nineteen
twenty Prohibition. What rebellion. Everybody snuck out after five before
the Rockland evening scene. I read about it in the
(04:42):
Times after I saw Mohammed Ali throwing up a set underwater,
and I had to check the sun. I can't believe
it took me so long to recognize Miami's shadow. Why
did my family have to become history before I learned them?
We lived down south, we moved to Liberty City. My
(05:05):
parents were mourning. I learned that we weren't a part
of the declaration, not that we freed ourselves when we
came to Spanish Florida, where the Spanish said, we're free
so long as we got baptized, and we swam deep,
made a village of the sea, where black was our
born again identity. And then Andrew Jackson came with his
cavalry of wars, the Seminole Wars, and we braved the
Florida Straits to Red Bays, Bahamas. No one told me
(05:28):
that we too were Seminoles. We LOSSI Maronez had Maroon colonies,
Fort Mosees, Pelicacaha. I was told our history was a
landlocked plantation, a greedy ocean, not that we returned to
the sea and mastered it, not that we had to
drain the Everglades to free ourselves. I saw photos of
white gladesmen holding fishing rods on boats led by black
(05:51):
men standing waist deep in the water, their faces blurred,
caught in action. Call the gladesmen. I am at the
(06:14):
age where my body prepares for children, and I am
still mothering myself. I am healing the wound of history.
I was born in ninety five. I came like a freeway,
splitting the family between the living and the dead. I
visit them both. I in ninety five. A cesarean across
over town. I am learning that I am from this place.
(06:35):
I want to tell my people. They cannot make us
a slave on the land that freed us. They cannot
make us a slave by the water that freed us.
We boarded the other railroad out the south. Some of
us runaways translated our names into creek. Some of us
left the lineus with British loyalists who didn't want to
piss off Daddy with a revolution. But little did they
know the Bahamas would free us. But Miami wouldn't have
(06:57):
incorporated had we not come back by the boat load,
bringing island architect in free hands that looked at water
and saw a city. I imagine these are the same
runaways that prayed to Yamaya for a way home and
got a new land, a rebirth in the ocean that
remembers twenty years. I've been closer to the Bahamas than
(07:19):
any land I thought Ammonia, and I am just learning
the colors. Get this Aqua for the water, gold for
the sun, and black for the people. I've never known
a nation that claims me without me having to ask it.
To this, where freedom was thought a curse. There was
no cash crop, no industry to sustain slavery. Sugar didn't thrive,
(07:41):
pineapple started to die. The land rejected the cotton, and
the conks no longer had command over the enslaved the
soil of rebellion. The water a battleground for runaways to
pirate themselves into riches. We so free, we crossed the sea.
I go to Nassau for the first time, and Uncle
Clifford says, welcome home. I take off my shoes, I
(08:01):
wear no makeup. I listen to the trees vibrating with life.
Auntie Jeanne says, singers. We call them singers. We got
singers in the trees. I think of Overtown babies running
barefoot in the streets, their legs sprinkled with sand from
Dorsey's Island or Virginia Key Beach. I am free here
(08:25):
and by here, I mean this body that changes in
the water and sun, transfiguring me to resemble a past life.
I am told I look like my mama. I am
told I favor my father. I want to tell people
they are both black, and by black, I mean the creation,
the dream of every color, the ocean's shadow. The ocean
(08:48):
hears our voices. I mean I hear voices in the ocean.
The ocean freed Willy on a boat from a passenger
in nineteen oh five to nineteen fifteen crew. By nineteen
twenty nine, he was a rum runner and Miami's first
black boat captain. I am proud of the man who
mastered his own ship, who father, grandmother, and cared for
(09:08):
all his kin on Ninth Street. He came and went
as he pleased, bold enough to show up at the
auction in nineteen twenty three and buy back his boat
from the coast Guard. What rebellion, Now, that's a different spirit.
Doctor Fields asked me if it was Willie who eventually
left and never came back. I tell her, I know
(09:29):
many Ebo landings men who walked the ocean floor. You
know slavery created flying Africans and Africans who walked on
water with dry feet. Listen to the cadence of islanders,
and you could hear the waves in their speech. My
blood is a boat back to the islands. My body
(09:50):
is the sea I cross freely. I come from people
who never died because I remember them. I come from
people who will never die, because I will remember to
look for them. I am the picture of everyone who survived.
I am the dream of those who didn't. How do
I tell people I've seen gohos? How do I explain
history that feels like a memory. I have to remember
(10:13):
who's still dead. The boat of my body has soul ways,
some of whom make me sick. Some of them died
before they were named. Some of them died before I
knew their names. I carry them anyway, because I share
lives with my siblings. I will tell them all the
stories I dug up. I will tell their children. There
are stories I will tell them to tell my children.
(10:34):
If they survive me, I will tell them. There was
so much I don't know, but there is so much
that I do. We come from Seamen. We come from
people who know how to build a home that will
not fall when the water remembers her land. We come
from people who nicknamed the ocean country. Folks lift conk
shells to hear the Atlantic because we called across the
sea through the horn like a baying. We come from
(10:57):
maroon migration, where are an sus just traveled to fight,
to work, to travel, to trade, united by the ocean.
We come from people who took their lives into their
own hands, like the Junkanoe. Jan quas A hunted soldiers
who allowed themselves to get captured into slavery so they
could started uprising in the sea. We name our hurricanes
(11:18):
after them. Miami come from my body. I fill the
weather in my bones. I look at trees until they
tell me who planted them, like the Spanish lime tree
I once stared at on Knine Street and over Town,
waiting to see some ghost or spirit in the branches.
Years later, Aunt Pat tells me her mother, Aunt Wilhelmina
(11:44):
Willie's daughter, planted it. My mouth drives to salt water
swells my eyes. My blood is a saltwater railroad, a
bridge connecting Miami to the Bahamas. Come from people who
freed themselves on the water. I come from people who
(12:04):
flood their wounds with ocean. Oh, Miami, the free land
invaded by greed. Some walked into the water, seeking freedom
and drank deep. Some sought to return to the motherland.
Headed east, we crossed the straits to a homeland of
our making found in the sea. We are born of
(12:27):
the great passage that still stirs storms and shark paths
to this day. It is not wrong to go back
for that which you have forgotten. In Miami's Public Library,
my family floats. Every ancestor is an island. I must
(12:48):
swim to the Bahamas, land of seven hundred Islands. I
come to you with poetry. Let me tell you the
story of the child you willed to live free as
a dream floating in the sea.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
What Wow, power, Oh my god, you are so powerful.
You are so powerful. Thank you for that gift. Play
that over and over again, because there's a lot to
learn from what you just said. Wow. Unhappy poetry day, everybody.
(13:31):
Thank you for coming back to receive this gift from
the amazing Chris sal Victoria approach.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
We'll catch you next time.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Launch.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
This podcast is brought to you by Moonflower Productions in
partnership with Iheartsmike wil Do that podcast Network. For more podcasts,
visit the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Ready fording. Okay, So we are back with the incredible
Chrystal Victoria Roach and today she's gonna give us a
little gift.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Manifest Bound for Nassau, Bahamas, whereof Willie Franks is master
cruelest of the American nineteen nineteen. I am from the
place where the only light comes from God, Sun, Baby,
Star child. Mama drove to the keys land of my
(00:42):
ancestors with me in her belly. Was it Lucretia born
in eighteen sixty three, dead by eighteen ninety nine, flying
her back to the city Child of Miami? Dongo ghosts
in the sea? Did Melvis know a storm was coming
and make Mama bleed so she would get to step in.
Mama was in the hospital for months. She needed blood
(01:02):
else she would labor with water. Legend has it all
of Miami gave a blood boat for the baby kept
us afloat to the berth. The story does not start
with me surviving my own birth or the birthing sweet
where Mamma mourned while the family gathered at the wake.
The story does not start with the Frank's girls, the
first of my blood to outlive, survival, or grandmother waking
(01:24):
up from a coma like it was a nap or.
The sisters with two palatial homes on Northwest sixty sixth Streets,
sharing a yard across the wall on Twelfth Avenue in
Liberty City. We'd drive over the town to the homes
of our birth as they emptied year by year, daughter
by son by sister. I am ashamed. I grew up
(01:46):
with elders and did not know to ask them questions.
I remember everything. Nana gray heads, slow steps, women who
made grace of age, women who knew they were dying,
so they made a riddle of their lives. It was
Aunt wille La who filled my skinny arm with gold,
but I was too young to know the value of
an heirloom. Uncle Vaughan, Nana's first baby, died at my birth.
(02:10):
You can't tell me I don't know him. I recognize
his face. I've held his secrets. I imagine the ancestors said,
a life for a life, blood bonds every day. I
become the woman of his dreams as I create and
love freely. My neck is heavy with the gold I
wear to match my father, the keepsake he wears to
(02:30):
honor his brother so he can still see him shining
in the mirror, dressing Daddy to the nines. I know
that somewhere in my blood, somebody's child was captured. I
grit my teeth, I taste the blood, the metal. This
body was never fashioned for chains. I am ashamed. I
saw grandmother in a photo album and I questioned her
naked neck, where's her necklace? Her chain? I don't know
(02:55):
how to explain what it is I feel in Overtown,
where like any fools skins in school on the metro,
I remember saying, what's so historic about historic over Town?
Never once did I look it up. It took me
three decades to see Zora and Neilhurston baptizing the Bahamian babies,
and Biscayne Bassing and Biddy Biddy ben my stories in turn,
(03:16):
loose the rooster and hold the hand, Zora learn the
song's grandmother and them saying as childs then wrote it
for me to hear their voices. Wish I had a needle,
fine as I could sew, saw my baby to my
side and down the road I'd go. The static crackles
across the archival record words come to me in waves,
and I am charged with listening. I am guilty with curiosity.
(03:37):
I've stolen history from institutions that know the names of
all my dead. It wasn't just my grades staying in
the Central Negro District after playing in them racist hotels
on Sundown Beach, South Beach, Billy and Nat Langston and
louis Etta and Lionel. My ghost town has people in it.
(03:59):
People shadrack Ward, my first patriarch, who built a house
strong enough to be remembered. He brought Lucretia from Key
West to Lemon City. He married Victoria and blessed his
daughter's hand to Victoria's little brother, Willy. He brought land,
He worked it. He went with Willy to buy his
first boat in Nassau. He told his son in law
to make something of himself. He told his brother in
(04:22):
law to make something for himself. Daddy Ward opened up
his place to people who needed rest, a place to
lie their heads, a place to drink, and Willy sold
rum from the boats. He didn't sink. It was nineteen
twenty Prohibition. What rebellion. Everybody snuck out after five before
the Rockland evening scene. I read about it in the
(04:42):
Times after I saw Mohammed Ali throwing up a set underwater,
and I had to check the sun. I can't believe
it took me so long to recognize Miami's shadow. Why
did my family have to become history before I learned them?
We lived down south, we moved to Liberty City. My
(05:05):
parents were mourning. I learned that we weren't a part
of the declaration, not that we freed ourselves when we
came to Spanish Florida, where the Spanish said, we're free
so long as we got baptized, and we swam deep,
made a village of the sea, where black was our
born again identity. And then Andrew Jackson came with his
cavalry of wars, the Seminole Wars, and we braved the
Florida Straits to Red Bays, Bahamas. No one told me
(05:28):
that we too were Seminoles. We LOSSI Maronez had Maroon colonies,
Fort Mosees, Pelicacaha. I was told our history was a
landlocked plantation, a greedy ocean, not that we returned to
the sea and mastered it, not that we had to
drain the Everglades to free ourselves. I saw photos of
white gladesmen holding fishing rods on boats led by black
(05:51):
men standing waist deep in the water, their faces blurred,
caught in action. Call the gladesmen. I am at the
(06:14):
age where my body prepares for children, and I am
still mothering myself. I am healing the wound of history.
I was born in ninety five. I came like a freeway,
splitting the family between the living and the dead. I
visit them both. I in ninety five. A cesarean across
over town. I am learning that I am from this place.
(06:35):
I want to tell my people. They cannot make us
a slave on the land that freed us. They cannot
make us a slave by the water that freed us.
We boarded the other railroad out the south. Some of
us runaways translated our names into creek. Some of us
left the lineus with British loyalists who didn't want to
piss off Daddy with a revolution. But little did they
know the Bahamas would free us. But Miami wouldn't have
(06:57):
incorporated had we not come back by the boat load,
bringing island architect in free hands that looked at water
and saw a city. I imagine these are the same
runaways that prayed to Yamaya for a way home and
got a new land, a rebirth in the ocean that
remembers twenty years. I've been closer to the Bahamas than
(07:19):
any land I thought Ammonia, and I am just learning
the colors. Get this Aqua for the water, gold for
the sun, and black for the people. I've never known
a nation that claims me without me having to ask it.
To this, where freedom was thought a curse. There was
no cash crop, no industry to sustain slavery. Sugar didn't thrive,
(07:41):
pineapple started to die. The land rejected the cotton, and
the conks no longer had command over the enslaved the
soil of rebellion. The water a battleground for runaways to
pirate themselves into riches. We so free, we crossed the sea.
I go to Nassau for the first time, and Uncle
Clifford says, welcome home. I take off my shoes, I
(08:01):
wear no makeup. I listen to the trees vibrating with life.
Auntie Jeanne says, singers. We call them singers. We got
singers in the trees. I think of Overtown babies running
barefoot in the streets, their legs sprinkled with sand from
Dorsey's Island or Virginia Key Beach. I am free here
(08:25):
and by here, I mean this body that changes in
the water and sun, transfiguring me to resemble a past life.
I am told I look like my mama. I am
told I favor my father. I want to tell people
they are both black, and by black, I mean the creation,
the dream of every color, the ocean's shadow. The ocean
(08:48):
hears our voices. I mean I hear voices in the ocean.
The ocean freed Willy on a boat from a passenger
in nineteen oh five to nineteen fifteen crew. By nineteen
twenty nine, he was a rum runner and Miami's first
black boat captain. I am proud of the man who
mastered his own ship, who father, grandmother, and cared for
(09:08):
all his kin on Ninth Street. He came and went
as he pleased, bold enough to show up at the
auction in nineteen twenty three and buy back his boat
from the coast Guard. What rebellion, Now, that's a different spirit.
Doctor Fields asked me if it was Willie who eventually
left and never came back. I tell her, I know
(09:29):
many Ebo landings men who walked the ocean floor. You
know slavery created flying Africans and Africans who walked on
water with dry feet. Listen to the cadence of islanders,
and you could hear the waves in their speech. My
blood is a boat back to the islands. My body
(09:50):
is the sea I cross freely. I come from people
who never died because I remember them. I come from
people who will never die, because I will remember to
look for them. I am the picture of everyone who survived.
I am the dream of those who didn't. How do
I tell people I've seen gohos? How do I explain
history that feels like a memory. I have to remember
(10:13):
who's still dead. The boat of my body has soul ways,
some of whom make me sick. Some of them died
before they were named. Some of them died before I
knew their names. I carry them anyway, because I share
lives with my siblings. I will tell them all the
stories I dug up. I will tell their children. There
are stories I will tell them to tell my children.
(10:34):
If they survive me, I will tell them. There was
so much I don't know, but there is so much
that I do. We come from Seamen. We come from
people who know how to build a home that will
not fall when the water remembers her land. We come
from people who nicknamed the ocean country. Folks lift conk
shells to hear the Atlantic because we called across the
sea through the horn like a baying. We come from
(10:57):
maroon migration, where are an sus just traveled to fight,
to work, to travel, to trade, united by the ocean.
We come from people who took their lives into their
own hands, like the Junkanoe. Jan quas A hunted soldiers
who allowed themselves to get captured into slavery so they
could started uprising in the sea. We name our hurricanes
(11:18):
after them. Miami come from my body. I fill the
weather in my bones. I look at trees until they
tell me who planted them, like the Spanish lime tree
I once stared at on Knine Street and over Town,
waiting to see some ghost or spirit in the branches.
Years later, Aunt Pat tells me her mother, Aunt Wilhelmina
(11:44):
Willie's daughter, planted it. My mouth drives to salt water
swells my eyes. My blood is a saltwater railroad, a
bridge connecting Miami to the Bahamas. Come from people who
freed themselves on the water. I come from people who
(12:04):
flood their wounds with ocean. Oh, Miami, the free land
invaded by greed. Some walked into the water, seeking freedom
and drank deep. Some sought to return to the motherland.
Headed east, we crossed the straits to a homeland of
our making found in the sea. We are born of
(12:27):
the great passage that still stirs storms and shark paths
to this day. It is not wrong to go back
for that which you have forgotten. In Miami's Public Library,
my family floats. Every ancestor is an island. I must
(12:48):
swim to the Bahamas, land of seven hundred Islands. I
come to you with poetry. Let me tell you the
story of the child you willed to live free as
a dream floating in the sea.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
What Wow, power, Oh my god, you are so powerful.
You are so powerful. Thank you for that gift. Play
that over and over again, because there's a lot to
learn from what you just said. Wow. Unhappy poetry day, everybody.
(13:31):
Thank you for coming back to receive this gift from
the amazing Chris sal Victoria approach.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
We'll catch you next time.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Launch.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
This podcast is brought to you by Moonflower Productions in
partnership with Iheartsmike wil Do that podcast Network. For more podcasts,
visit the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Gemeny Hernandez
Emily Estefan
Popular Podcasts
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!