This collection of Paule Marshall's short works illustrates the growth of a remarkable writer. Introducing the volume is Marshall's much-acclaimed autobiographical essay, 'From the Poets in the Kitchen," in which she 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; and the title character of the novella "Merle" is one of the most memorable women in contemporary fiction.