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Travel, Migration, and Great Migration poetry

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This tag is associated with poetry dealing with travel and migration of various kinds. 

One category might be connected to poets who were themselves migrants, like Claude McKay, who migrated from Jamaica to the U.S. in the early 1910s. A good place to start with McKay might be "Tropics in New York." 

Others experienced domestic migration, with many Black poets of this period moving from the American South to northern cities like New York and Chicago. T. Thomas Fortune, for example was born in Florida but moved to New York City; he writes about this in "The Clime of My Birth."  Other "Great Migration" poems include Georgia Douglas Johnson's "Hegira" and Lucy Ariel Williams' "Northboun'". 

Others were travelers -- visiting Europe, Latin America, and Africa. Langston Hughes, for example, wrote memorably of his visit to West Africa in the early 1920s. James Weldon Johnson spent time in Latin America between 1906 and 1913, while working as a U.S. Consul in Venezuela and Nicaragua. Others traveled as tourists. Countee Cullen wrote memorably about a trip to Europe. 

Finally, there are a few poems here connected with imaginations of the African 'homeland', sometimes from the point of view of UNIA members who were envisioning migrating back to Africa at some point. 

Contents of this tag:

  1. Zora Neale Hurston, "Muttsy" (1926)
  2. Langston Hughes, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" (1921)
  3. Leslie Pinckney Hill, "Wings of Oppression" (Full Text) (1921)
  4. Langston Hughes, "Fine Clothes to the Jew" (1927) (Full Text)
  5. Langston Hughes, "A Farewell" (1926)
  6. Langston Hughes, "Blues Fantasy" (1926)
  7. Langston Hughes, "Young Sailor" (1926)
  8. George Marion McClellan, "Poems" (1895)
  9. Zora Neale Hurston, "How It Feels to Be Colored Me" (1928)
  10. Langston Hughes, "Soledad: A Cuban Portrait" (1925)
  11. Langston Hughes, "Long Trip" (1926)
  12. Claude McKay, "On the Road" (1922)
  13. Langston Hughes, "Port Town" (1926)
  14. Helene Johnson, "Fulfillment" (1926)
  15. Georgia Douglas Johnson, "The Hegira" (1917)
  16. Lucian B. Watkins, "Anita" (1907)
  17. Langston Hughes, "Natcha" (1926)
  18. Claude McKay, "In Bondage" (1921)
  19. H. Percival Welsh, "A Call to Race Manhood" (1921)
  20. Langston Hughes, "Seascape" (1926)
  21. Claude McKay, "To One Coming North" (1922)
  22. Langston Hughes, "To the Dark Mercedes of 'El Palacio de Amor'" (1926)
  23. Langston Hughes, "The South" (1926)
  24. Langston Hughes, "Mexican Market Woman" (1926)
  25. Claude McKay, "The Tropics in New York" (1922)
  26. Langston Hughes, "Water-Front Streets" (1926)
  27. Charles Frederick White, "The Eighth Returning from Cuba" (1899/1908)
  28. S. Miller Johnson, "The Hasting Holler" (1927)
  29. Arna Bontemps, "Close Your Eyes!" (1927)
  30. Effie Lee Newsome, "Exodus" (1925)
  31. Claude McKay, "I Shall Return" (1922)
  32. Claude McKay, "Homing Swallows" (1922)
  33. Langston Hughes, "To a Negro Jazz Band in a Parisian Cabaret" (1925)
  34. Claude McKay, "The Spanish Needle" (1922)
  35. Lucy Ariel Williams, "Northboun'" (1926)
  36. Claude McKay, "To Winter" (1922)
  37. Ethel Caution-Davis (Ethel M. Caution), "Long Remembering" (1928)
  38. Nella Larsen, "Quicksand" (1928; full text / ebook)
  39. Claude McKay, "On a Primitive Canoe" (1922)
  40. Claude McKay, "Flame-Heart" (1921)
  41. Claude McKay, "After the Winter" (1922)
  42. Claude McKay, "Winter in the Country" (1922)
  43. Claude McKay, "Home Thoughts" (1922)
  44. Walter Waring, "Empire" (1928)
  45. Thomas H. Brooks, "The U.N.I.A." (1921)
  46. Eugene Gordon, "Alien" (1928)
  47. Langston Hughes, "Fog" (1926)
  48. Countee Cullen, "At the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem" (1927)
  49. Langston Hughes, "Return to Sea" (1927)
  50. Joseph Hazel Donaldson, "To Minnie" (1921)
  51. Countee Cullen, "To Endymion" (1927)
  52. Langston Hughes, "In a Mexican City" (1921)
  53. Claude McKay, "After the Winters" (1919)
  54. Hilary Teague, "Poem" (1903)
  55. Edward S. Silvera (Edward Silvera), "Virginia Memories" (1927)
  56. Matthew D. Bennett, "Caanian" (1906)
  57. Joshua Henry Jones, Jr. "The Four Seas Are Brothers" (1921)
  58. Arna Bontemps, "Nocturne of the Wharves" (1928)
  59. Effie Lee Newsome, "Negro Street Serenade (In the South)" (1926)
  60. Langston Hughes, Biographical Note, "Caroling Dusk" (1927)
  61. Katherine D. Tillman, "Seeking the Lost" (1902)
  62. Langston Hughes, "African Dancer in Paris" (1928)
  63. Langston Hughes, "Ruby Brown" (1926)
  64. Maurice N. Corbett, "Neither Emigration Nor Segregation" (1914)
  65. Arna Bontemps, "Here Is the Sea" (1926)
  66. Sterling A. Brown, "Odyssey of Big Boy" (1927)
  67. James Weldon Johnson, "Down By The Carib Sea" (1917)
  68. Jessie Fauset, "Stars in Alabama" (1928)
  69. Sterling A. Brown, "Long Gone" (1927)
  70. Frances E.W. Harper, "The Present Age" (1896)
  71. Claude McKay, "La Paloma in London" (1922)
  72. T. Thomas Fortune, "The Clime of My Birth" (1905)
  73. Langston Hughes, "I Thought it was Tangiers I Wanter" (1927)
  74. Langston Hughes, "Montmartre Beggar Woman" (1927)
  75. Hephzibah E. Willis, "To the Black Star Line" (1921)
  76. James Madison Bell, "Descriptive Voyage From New York to Aspinwall" (1901)
  77. Countee Cullen, "On the Mediterranean Sea" (1927)
  78. Claude McKay, "When Dawn Comes to the City" (1922)