Lecture: What Gets Left Behind: Stories from the Great Migration

Abstract

It is April 1, 2017, and I stand before you on this first evening of National Poetry Month as someone’s mother, someone’s daughter, someone’s life-partner, another woman’s grandchild, niece, cousin, friend — this list goes on. I stand before you as a poet, a novelist, a gatherer of memories. I stand before you with all of my many selves in one place — South Carolina. A state (and state of mind) I have always loved, have always called home. But it is a home that, like millions of African Americans, I left a long time ago.