Flight Lines: A Poetics of Black Space (Errantries)

Flight Lines: A Poetics of Black Space is the first volume of the Errantries series. This work of literary criticism by Elleza Kelley examines how Black people occupy and redefine the concepts of space and place. By analyzing African American literature and art, the author highlights the contributions of figures such as Phillis Wheatley, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Zora Neale Hurston to the development of Black epistemologies of space.

The text traces the history of racial enclosure from plantations to the modern era. Kelley explores how the built environment, including fences, trains, and city blocks, functions under the pressures of surveillance and racial capitalism. Flight Lines: A Poetics of Black Space, Volume 1, demonstrates how these restrictive sites also become areas where freedom is rehearsed and new Black geographies emerge through improvisation and creative resistance.