A Key into the Language of America by Rosmarie WaldropNew Directions, 1994

“Conimicut, Matunuck, Meshanticut”: so starts one of the lists of Rhode Island place-names in the introduction to this book. I grew up in Rhode Island; until I was five, we lived on Shawomet Avenue, within walking distance of Conimicut Point. These words have always been part of my vocabulary: Conanicut Island, Pawtucket, Chepachet. Waldrop writes from multiple vantage points: she is white and educated, a European immigrant, but also a woman, also a poet, also someone with in interest in imagining the lives of the conquered, the past that was or could have been. This book also uses writing by Roger Williams, banished from Massachusetts, founder of Rhode Island. I like the juxtaposition of times and cultures that Waldrop creates in this book, the way words come together in sentences and lists, in varying degrees of strangeness and newness.