Pilgrim Journey

by Naomi Long Madgett

In Pilgrim Journey, award-winning poet Naomi Long Madgett describes the people and events that influenced her life and work. Written with a wealth of detail and personal reflection and illustrated with fifty photographs, this book will be insightful, rewarding, and inspirational for readers.

The daughter of a Baptist pastor, Madgett was born in Virginia and moved with her family to East Orange, New Jersey as a toddler. In detailing her childhood, Madgett offers rich stories of both the hardships and joys of growing up during the Great Depression. She also introduces readers to her family and the community of outstanding African Americans around them. In particular, Madgett recalls the people who encouraged her writing as a child and describes publishing her first collection of poetry at the age of seventeen. As a young woman, Madgett continued to travel a unique path. Moving from New Jersey to an all-black high school in St. Louis, Missouri, she also spent time in New Rochelle, New York, and finally settled in Detroit, Michigan, where she arrived as a young bride. Along the way, Madgett shares reflections on her personal life, her career, her poetry, as well as on her changing surroundings, allowing readers to experience her fascinating journey firsthand.

Pilgrim Journey presents Madgett s successes and her disappointments, along with her personal beliefs and values. The book also demonstrates the positive impact she has had on others through poetry, teaching, and editing and publishing books by other African American poets. Madgett s fans and anyone interested in studying the life of an extraordinary poet will enjoy this honest autobiography.

492 pages, Hardcover

First published May 11, 2006

About the author

Naomi Long Madgett (born July 5, 1923) is an African-American poet, born Naomi Cornelia Long in Norfolk, Virginia. Madgett was a teacher and an award-winning poet, and she is also the senior editor of Lotus Press, a publisher of poetry books by black poets.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Ruth Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a project next semester, I need to become familiar with the work of Naomi Long Madgett. I started with this autobiography because I obtained it through interlibrary loan and will have to return it soon (no renewals allowed.) Most of her poetry, though, is available in my local library.

Reading this felt very much like listening to my grandmother's reminiscing. Madgett tells her story thematically rather than chronologically, with sections focused on topics that might span decades or even a half century: international travel; all the houses Madgett lived in as an adult; her founding and work on the Lotus Press; two early marriages that ended in divorce; genealogical research on her parents' families (to name just a few.) This was occasionally confusing, as the narration jumped back and forth in time, and the content often felt superficial. The focus was strongly on names and dates and details of daily life, with very little said about national events, how they affected her or what she thought about them. I was glad to get to the chapters about the Lotus Press and Madgett's interactions with other Detroit poets, among other topics addressed in the last third of the book.

The superficiality was a little perplexing for the autobiography of a poet, which I thought would spend more time describing a rich inner life. I wonder if Madgett's feeling while writing the autobiography was that she had already spent her life writing about the things that were most important to her, and didn't need to repeat them. In any case, reading her poetry will be next.