Letter to My City

Authors

  • Nyami Aghedo Department of Geography, UNC Chapel Hill

Keywords:

home, city, familiarity, lineage, longing

Abstract

In this poem-letter the speaker addresses their hometown, a place of familiarity and contradiction. Through exploring the dark past of Southern North Carolina an intimate account of living in community is illustrated.

A collage of photos and materials provided by issue authors. These include: a photo of a landscape with stars shining above a curved snowy road disappearing into a wooded horizon along the coast of Gichigami/Lake Superior; a cutout of cursive text written by Caitilin McMillan’s mother that reads “to the world's best heart”; a photo of Neelofer Qadir’s hand holding colorful postcards in front of the blue water of Gris Gris, Mauritius; a handwritten letter in Spanish dated August 1983 from Alana de Hinojosa’s grandmother to her mother, Evelina “Bebe”, asking for her to come back home to Calexico, California; a black-and-white troll block print and a Valentine's Day card with porcupine quills piercing a red-and-black heart and the handwritten message “Happy Valentines Day! Contains two genuine porcupine quills, picked clean by ravens. Love, Elspeth”; a black-and-white photograph of Dr. Donald Deskins Jr. in a three-point stance wearing a football uniform; a colourful poster with doves and peace flowers and text that reads “Viva! Viva! Palestina!”; an orange envelope reading “don't you dare write back!” with a hand-drawn scowling figure; a screenshot of a Zoom grid of smiling attendees at the American Association of Geographers 2021 Desirable Futures sessions; and background text and images from valentines written by Elspeth Iralu.

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Published

2024-04-15

How to Cite

Aghedo, N. (2024). Letter to My City. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 23(2), 114–115. Retrieved from https://acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/2383

Issue

Vol. 23 No. 2 (2024): Desirable Futures

Section

Special Issue: Desirable Futures

License

Copyright (c) 2024 Nyami Aghedo

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