Saturday, December 11, 2010

The Warmth of Other Suns (2010)

Because a friend mentioned having read The Warmth of Other Suns, I snatched it off the library new book shelves and added it to my pile. The subtitle is The Epic Story of America's Great Migration and it follows the story of three specific individuals who left the south while embedding their lives in the greater story of that migration. I'm about one third through this beautifully written and researched book by the Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist Isabel Wilkerson. I wanted to share this  poem that starts the next section.

I pick up my life
And take it with me
And I put it down in 
Chicago, Detroit,
Buffalo, Scranton. . .
I pick up my life
And take it on the train
To Los Angeles, Bakersfield,
Seattle, Oakland, Salt Lake,
Any place that is 
North and West--
And not South.

One Way Ticket
by Langston Hughes

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