Jackson, Mississippi

February 8, 2013

Leaving the Natchez Trace I drove over to Jackson, Mississippi, and this was my first stop. So many beautiful handmade items by Mississippi artists were on display.

 

 These two photos below are not mine but they capture the essence of what's inside this place.

 

 I really came to Jackson for the writers. A small, shrinelike room in the city's Eudora Welty Library is dedicated to Mississippi-born writers and poets, including William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Welty herself and Richard Wright along with authors Shelby Foote (The Civil War: A Narrative), and hundreds of others catalogued in author portfolios and video recordings available by request.

I really enjoyed these displays.

And then I headed to the home of Eudora Welty, herself.

Here is the beginning of her short story, "Why I Live at the Post Office" just to give you the flavor of her writing.


I WAS GETTING ALONG FINE with Mama, Papa-Daddy and Uncle Rondo until my sister Stella-Rondo just separated from her husband and came back home again. Mr. Whitaker! Of course I went with Mr. Whitaker first, when he first appeared here in China Grove, taking "Pose Yourself" photos, and Stella-Rondo broke us up. Told him I was one-sided. Bigger on one side than the other, which is a deliberate, calculated falsehood: I'm the same. Stella-Rondo is exactly twelve months to the day younger than I am and for that reason she's spoiled.
 She's always had anything in the world she wanted and then she'd throw it away. Papa-Daddy gave her this gorgeous Add-a-Pearl necklace when she was eight years old and she threw it away playing baseball when she was nine, with only two pearls.
 So as soon as she got married and moved away from home the first thing she did was separate! From Mr. Whitaker! This photographer with the popeyes she said she trusted. Came home from one of those towns up in Illinois and to our complete surprise brought this child of two.
 Mama said she like to made her drop dead for a second. "Here you had this marvelous blonde child and never so much as wrote your mother a word about it," says Mama. "I'm thoroughly ashamed of you." But of course she wasn't.

"To visitors from across America and around the world, the Welty Home provides a literary experience to enhance the understanding of Welty’s life and work. Welty’s fiction affirms that the imagination can be a powerful force to combat suffering, both physical and spiritual. Programming emphasizes Welty’s striking intellect and creative powers, her devotion to the humanities, the place of literature in our lives, and the role of the writer in our society."

 (They say it better than I can. I learned so much about her life as an author and her work coming here.)

I found Eudora Welty's photography to be excellent.

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After touring the Welty house, I went to the independently-owned bookstore where she shopped, and what a wonderful bookstore Lemuria is! I would go here all the time if I lived in Jackson.

Camping while visiting Jackson was at a Mississippi State Park called LeFleur's Bluff. This is a photo I took along side the entrance road.