This picture book sets out to capture the moment when Langston Hughes became confident of his vocation as a poet. Double-page illustrations evoke - in a blaze of colour - the dreamy train ride south when the young Langston was inspired to write his famous 1921 poem, 'The Negro Speaks of Rivers'. The text captures the slow gestation of the poem as the 18 year old muses on life, his past, and his desire to give voice to the wider history of his people.