| Acknowledgements | 9 |
| Rice: An Introduction | 11 |
| The Blackened Alphabet | 16 |
| Irons At Her Feet | 17 |
| Yellow Jaundice | 19 |
| The Goodfellows Club | 25 |
| Cotton Tea | 33 |
| Harry and Jainey | 35 |
| Understudies | 39 |
| My Centipeding Self | 46 |
| Making Foots | 48 |
| Lightkeeper | 51 |
| In South Carolina: Where Black School Marms Sleep | 52 |
| Black Orion | 55 |
| "God Ain't Makin' No More Land" | 58 |
| The Afterbirth, 1931 | 66 |
| Mary Mary Quite Contrary | 73 |
| The Sound Of Burning Hair | 75 |
| Dinosaur | 78 |
| Pluck | 81 |
| The Devil Is Beating His Wife | 88 |
| Eskimo | 91 |
| Acquanetta of Hollywood | 93 |
| I Have Been Somewhere | 99 |
| The Butt of The Joke | 100 |
| South Africa: When A Woman Is A Rock | 105 |
| The Ostrich | 108 |
| Brown country | 109 |
| He Never Had It Made | 117 |
| The Turtle Ball | 124 |
| Tenderheaded | 129 |
| Living On What | 132 |
| Mae/I | 134 |
| Love Marrow 3 | 138 |
| Mute | 139 |
| Permittable Thunder | 140 |
| The Vertigo | 149 |
| The Mapmaker | 155 |
| The Savoy, 1926 | 157 |
| Daguerre of Negras | 162 |
| Woman Holdin' Up All 'Deeze Folks | 165 |
| Rule Number One | 168 |
| The End of it | 170 |
| A Woman With Keys | 171 |
| The Rice | 173 |