{"product_id":"migration-letters-isbn-9780807008072","title":"Migration Letters","description":"\u003cb\u003eA poetry collection that reflects on intimate aspects of Black history, culture, and identity, revealing an uncommon gaze on working-class Philadelphia from the 1960s to the present day\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 55 poems, \u003ci\u003eMigration Letters\u003c\/i\u003e straddles the personal and public with particular, photorealistic detail to identify what, over time, creating a home creates in ourselves. Drawn from her experiences of being born in Philadelphia into a Black family and a Black culture transported from the American South by the Great Migration, M. Nzadi Keita’s poetry sparks a profoundly hybrid gaze of the visual and the sensory. Her lyrical fragments and sustained narrative plunge into the unsung aspects of Black culture and explore how Black Americans journey toward joy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePropelled by the conditions that motivated her family’s migration north, the poems pull heavily from Keita’s place in her family, communities, and the world at large. They testify to her time and circumstances growing up Black in Philadelphia on the periphery of the civil rights and Black Power movements. Each poem builds upon an inheritance of voices: a panoramic perspective of an Easter Sunday service in a Black church gives way to an account of psychic violence in a newly integrated school; the collective voices of a beauty salon’s patrons fragment into memories of neighborhoods in North Philadelphia that have faded over time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eMigration Letters\u003c\/i\u003e strives to tell a story about Black people that radiates across generations and testifies to a world that, as Lucille Clifton wrote, “has tried to kill [us] and has failed.” They interrogate how one’s present begins in the past, what we gain from barriers and boundaries, and what notions of progress energize our journey forward. Keita’s poems intimately reveal how Black culture can be inherited and built upon complex relationships where love and pain are inextricably linked.\u003cb\u003eTHE IDEA OF ANCESTRY\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e102.\u003cbr\u003e[Far]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e50.\u003cbr\u003e[Migration Letter]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e153.\u003cbr\u003e[Fathers]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e27.\u003cbr\u003e[night shift\/day shift]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e45.\u003cbr\u003e[Libations for the One Hundred Years of Gwendolyn Brooks]\u003cbr\u003eto your heart\u003cbr\u003eto your journey\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e173.\u003cbr\u003e[Migration Letter]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e69.\u003cbr\u003e[Mentor as a young woman: tanka for Sonia Sanchez]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e54.\u003cbr\u003e[A House Full]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e195.\u003cbr\u003e[Migration Letter]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e7.\u003cbr\u003e[Our Day Will Come]\u003cbr\u003eSeasons\u003cbr\u003eChristening\u003cbr\u003eRuby Dee and Sidney Poitier said what you couldn’t say.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAN AGONY. AS NOW.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e129.\u003cbr\u003e[Letters To Eleanor]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e34.\u003cbr\u003e[1963]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e70.\u003cbr\u003e[white lie]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e205.\u003cbr\u003e[Not Your Philadelphia: August, 1964]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e107.\u003cbr\u003e[\u003ci\u003eEbony\u003c\/i\u003e Magazine]\u003cbr\u003eWar\u003cbr\u003eTo the photographers\u003cbr\u003eDiaspora\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e156.\u003cbr\u003e[Toni Morrison Knows]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e74.\u003cbr\u003e[16th and Erie]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e105.\u003cbr\u003e[by 1989]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e9.\u003cbr\u003e[Letter to the Soul Singers: Lou Rawls,\u003cbr\u003eAretha Franklin, Koko Taylor, Ruth Brown,\u003cbr\u003eBrook Benton, Nina Simone, B.B. King, Otis Redding\u003cbr\u003e\u0026amp; James The-Godfather-of-Soul Brown]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTHAT WE HEAD TOWARD\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e111.\u003cbr\u003e[Letters to Black Bodies]\u003cbr\u003eIntegrated Morning\u003cbr\u003eIntegrated Afternoon\u003cbr\u003eBlue Plastic Clothesline\u003cbr\u003e“Fence Walk”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e25.\u003cbr\u003e[Presentable]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e11.\u003cbr\u003e[The Hansberry Suite]\u003cbr\u003eAfterword to Ruth\u003cbr\u003eAfterword to Walter Lee\u003cbr\u003eAfterword to Travis\u003cbr\u003eBeneatha Writes to Herself\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e57.\u003cbr\u003e[Holes]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e85.\u003cbr\u003e[Eunice on 194th]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e6.\u003cbr\u003e[Norristown]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e13.\u003cbr\u003e[Korvette’s, 1967]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e16.\u003cbr\u003e[Kimiko, 1961]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e109.\u003cbr\u003e[Great Migration Pentimento]\u003cbr\u003ePerry County\u003cbr\u003eMike\u003cbr\u003eJo\u003cbr\u003eStetson East\u003cbr\u003esiddity\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e86.\u003cbr\u003e[Eunice by heart]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e99.\u003cbr\u003e[House Wedding]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eHOMECOMING\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e29.\u003cbr\u003e[Green Shades Outside the Tropicoro Bar]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e38.\u003cbr\u003e[Migration Letter]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e213.\u003cbr\u003e[Letter to Melvin Butler, 1965]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e233.\u003cbr\u003e[Letters to Mt. Airy, West Side]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e240.\u003cbr\u003e[Jones Beauty Shop]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e189.\u003cbr\u003e[American ode]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e23.\u003cbr\u003e[multiplied]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e87.\u003cbr\u003e[Eunice in flight]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e117.\u003cbr\u003e[East Chelten Avenue]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e300.\u003cbr\u003e[Easter]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e18.\u003cbr\u003e[6966 Weatham Street, 1968]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e184.\u003cbr\u003e[Letters to the First-Gen North]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eDANCING ON THE SHORE\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e329.\u003cbr\u003e[No way the whole world is white.]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e66.\u003cbr\u003e[\u003ci\u003eHoliday\u003c\/i\u003e magazine on the sofa]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e67.\u003cbr\u003e[“What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)?”]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e311.\u003cbr\u003e[Just American kids]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e345.\u003cbr\u003e[Letter to Nina Simone]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e344.\u003cbr\u003e[Cannabis]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e321.\u003cbr\u003e[Hendrix, Once]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e19.\u003cbr\u003e[Set for Chaka Khan]\u003cbr\u003eYvette\u003cbr\u003eChime\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e273.\u003cbr\u003e[WDAS-FM, 1977]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e215.\u003cbr\u003e[Penn Relays]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e212.\u003cbr\u003e[Set for Pharoah Sanders]\u003cbr\u003eBus Ride\u003cbr\u003eChant\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e174.\u003cbr\u003e[Ode to Sandalwood]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e223.\u003cbr\u003e[assimilation]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e302.\u003cbr\u003e[American Innocents]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e312.\u003cbr\u003e[Laughing with Don Belton]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e78.\u003cbr\u003e[Steel Pulse sings me a dream-letter]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e304.\u003cbr\u003e[You Didn’t Pay for That]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e122.\u003cbr\u003e[Migration Letter]\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNotes\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgments\u003cbr\u003eGratitude\u003c\/i\u003e“As if entering a darkroom, Sister M. Nzadi Keita has entered the silences surrounding Black working-class migrants, transforming their lives, and carved that quiet, steady living into photographs. We see their journeys out of Southern kitchens and sawmills to Philadelphia homes and churches, newly integrated schools, resonant Civil Rights trauma, and college campuses. Into these disregarded interiors, her poems breathe air.”\u003cbr\u003e—Sonia Sanchez\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“How do we make a city with a name like ‘Philadelphia’ work for us when Philadelphia makes it hard for our blue-collar fathers to go to work? \u003ci\u003eMigration Letters\u003c\/i\u003e is a book of poems that has at its heart the question of cognitive dissonance in Black people who survive, participate, and thrive in an America they cannot fully trust.”\u003cbr\u003e—Jericho Brown, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Tradition\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Keita has given us a long-breath song of Black witness, missed kisses, and love’s labors lost, longed for, and remembered. \u003ci\u003eMigration Letters\u003c\/i\u003e summons life from clay and concrete and loam, reconfigures it into lyric, stanza, testimony.”\u003cbr\u003e—Jabari Asim, author of \u003ci\u003eYonder\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“With a wonderfully discerning focus on the lives of working-class Black Americans, Nzadi Keita’s \u003ci\u003eMigration Letters \u003c\/i\u003e[is] beautifully imagined, carefully considered. This collection, page by page, develops an elaborate portrait of a place and a people during the last sixty years. Though set in Philadelphia, these poems will compel all readers to reflect upon their upbringings, as well as on the intricate puzzle of elements that shaped and sustained their lives. With language that is both lyrical and unflinching, \u003ci\u003eMigration Letters\u003c\/i\u003e recalls the jagged, somewhat miraculous journey that each of us has taken.”\u003cbr\u003e—Tim Seibles, author of \u003ci\u003eVoodoo Libretto\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eM. Nzadi Keita\u003c\/b\u003e is a poet, essayist, scholar and teacher. Her most recent poetry collection, \u003ci\u003eBrief Evidence of Heaven\u003c\/i\u003e—a finalist for the Phillis Wheatley Poetry Prize—sheds light on Anna Murray Douglass, Frederick Douglass’s first wife, and is cited by David Blight in his prize-winning biography, \u003ci\u003eFrederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom\u003c\/i\u003e. Keita’s work has appeared in \u003ci\u003eA Face to Meet the Faces: A Persona Poetry Anthology\u003c\/i\u003e and journals including \u003ci\u003eKillens Review of Arts and Letters\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003ePoet Lore\u003c\/i\u003e. A Cave Canem alumna, she taught creative writing, American literature, and Africana studies at Ursinus College. She was an adviser to the award-winning documentary, \u003ci\u003eBadddDDD Sonia Sanchez\u003c\/i\u003e, and has consulted with the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Foundation and Mural Arts Philadelphia. Keita has presented poetry and scholarship at national and international conferences. Her prose will appear in the forthcoming \u003ci\u003eWhen We Exhale: Reflections on Rest, Grief, \u0026amp; Intimacy\u003c\/i\u003e from Black Freighter Press. Connect with her on IG: @nzadikeita","brand":"Beacon Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304980795621,"sku":"NP9780807008072","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780807008072.jpg?v=1767732680","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/migration-letters-isbn-9780807008072","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}