Like other poets we have published, John Metoyer studied at McNeese State University under John Wood. His diverse range of interests and his ability to synthesize them into a work of art, whether a poem, photograph, painting, or sculpture, exemplifies this rare and unique find. John Metoyer is unique, not only because he is a very fine and accomplished conceptual artist and printer of many old processes, but he is equally as fine a poet. It is because of our great respect for this unique artist and poet that Blood Migration (2008) was selected to celebrate 21st Editions' 10th Anniversary title. 

An ancestor of John Metoyer's migrated from France, married a slave, and through grants and purchases, she and her children amassed some 13,000 to 15,000 acres of land and became one of the richest African American families in the country. Yucca Plantation was the first and possibly the only plantation owned by a freed African. It is now a National Historic Landmark, noted not only for its classic plantation home but also for the African house, which is the oldest building in the U.S. of African design. Blood Migration, with a collection of autobiographical poems, is unlike any other book we will be able to create again in large part because of the 15x22-inch photographs that are hand coated and printed by the artist in platinum, palladium, kallitype, and cyanotype.