The Mississippi River.
A discursive exploration of environmental racism, southern history, the prison-industrial complex, police brutality, intergenerational trauma, and climate change, Petrochemical Nocturne is both paean and eulogy for the former enslaved communities of Cancer Alley, the erasure of an entire people from a poisoned landscape.. as Standard Heights and the ExxonMobil refinery which has destroyed it supply the energy and refined petroleum products which enable contemporary consumerism.
Petrochemical Nocturne is an indictment of what Toussaint describes as that dystopian haunted carnival cruise line called America.
Through these symbols and themes we learn about Toussaint, (an African-American named after the Haitian revolutionary leader Toussaint Louverture) and his formative experiences in the Standard Heights neighborhood of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Chlorine gas ghost ships.
The Angola prison rodeo.
Chemical explosions.
New Orleans Saints football.
Suicide by cop.
Boxing.
HAZMAT.
The Mississippi River
