{"product_id":"migration-letters-poems-paperback","title":"Migration Letters: Poems - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eM. Nzadi Keita\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\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 \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\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.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\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\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 160\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.39 x 8.43 x 5.43 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e April 02, 2024\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51763787694368,"sku":"9780807008072","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0974\/9764\/5344\/files\/1d790f4a6a814fe2fcfcce2c15a9ba62.webp?v=1780239803","url":"https:\/\/ebocreations.com\/products\/migration-letters-poems-paperback","provider":"The E-Book Oasis LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}