A Geographical Tour of Literary America

The Grand Tour of Literary Landmarks resulted from my students' success with another project that we called "Poetic License with THE AMAZING RACE." This new journey also begins and ends in my students' hometown. Chosen writers are specific to our curriculum and texts; however, teachers can adapt new selections to their students' needs. Side images are their original work. Photo images at each destination go directly to official sites or to the slideshows of my own travel photos. The main sources of written material here are www.Poets.org and Adventures in American Literature, Heritage Edition and Pegasus Edition.

Clarksdale, Mississippi


On the literary map, travel from Jackson to Clarksdale, Mississippi.

Calculate:

# _____________ Miles to Clarksdale, Mississippi

$ _____________ Cost for Gasoline to Clarksdale, Mississippi


Visit Tennessee Williams at www.SouthernLiteraryTrail.org and fill-in-the-blanks.

"_________ is where you hang your __________." Tennessee Williams

Read more about Tennessee Williams and fill-in-the-blanks.

"Tom 'Tennessee' Williams was born in __________ on Sunday, March 26, 1911, and baptized on June 11 at St. Paul's Episcopal Church by The Reverend Walter Dakin, his grandfather. Reverend Dakin became one of Tom's closest confidantes and a sympathetic ally against his indifferent father Cornelius Williams. Tom was the second child of Cornelius and Edwina Dakin Williams. The couple's daughter Rose, born before Tom on November 19, 1908, was tragically destined for a diagnosis of ________________ at age eighteen. Cornelius worked as a ____________________ until 1918 when he took a job in St. Louis and insisted that his wife and children leave the comforts of the Dakin household - then in Clarksdale - to be with him."

"Rose and Edwina were models for characters in many of ___________________, notably ______________________-which the playwright described as 'a picture of my own heart.' Cornelius also has a counterpart in Menagerie: __________________. Before she settled on Cornelius, Edwina Dakin was a belle with many suitors in Columbus, a classic southern town with a current collection of two hundred antebellum homes. One beau, Gaius Whitfield, used his family mansion Gaineswood in nearby Demopolis to woo her, but he could not compete with the deceptive charms of Cornelius Williams, whose blue-blooded Knoxville lineage proved more attractive to Edwina. "