We meet a Mayan cowboy, Archimedes, a diamond smuggler and a nightclubbing saint in this collection of poems bound together by the themes of place and origin. In Provenance, Brandel France de Bravo explores not only her own roots, but the roots of words. Taking her cue from Ralph Walso Emerson who said, "Every word was once a poem," she has written 26 poems--one for every letter--inspired by etymologies. By braiding autobiography with the biographies of "Apricot," and "Zygote" and everything inbetween, the poet tells a story that transports us to places both familiar and far-away.