NEW POETRY BOOK

Woodson, Jacqueline. Brown Girl Dreaming. New York: Nancy Paulsen Books, 2014.

Brown Girl Dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson is divided into five parts.  The first part, "I Am Born," is Jacqueline’s life from the day she was born in Columbus, Ohio, on February 12, 1963, to the day her mother left her father and took the family to South Carolina.  This section describes her father and his family in Ohio, their home, and the confused memories of her birth.  In the poem, “other people’s memory,” Woodson’s grandmother, mother, and father all remember her birth differently.  The sensory images are vivid and set the readers down right in the middle.  “Blue jays squawking,” “phone ringing,” and “static and squawking,” are all phrases used so readers can imagine they might have been there when the story unfolded.

The title of the second section, “the stories of south carolina run like rivers,” is a simile on its own.  This section includes the stories from her time in South Carolina as a child.  She describes the relationship she had with her grandparents, the ways they entertained themselves, and the way African Americans were treated in many situations. 

In the third part, “followed the sky’s mirrored constellation to freedom,” Jacqueline’s mother moved them to New York, the place where “money is falling from the sky, diamonds speckling the sidewalks.” 

‘Deep in my heart, i do believe” is section four.  Woodson writes of her difficulties learning to read and write, struggling to read books, trying to get words on paper.  She talks of her trips to the library, and the moment she found a book with people who looked like her:

            “If someone had taken

            that book out of my hand

            said, You’re too old for this

            maybe

            I’d never have believed

            that someone who looked like me

            could be in the pages of the book

            that someone who looked like me

            had a story.

Sad and, at the same time, magical.  This seems to be the point when Jacqueline realizes she can be the writer she has dreamed of, when her sister doesn’t believe she made up a song because “it’s too good.”  It makes her heart sing when she realizes the “stuff I make up is too good.”

In the last section, “ready to change the world,” Woodson describes the time when she learned of the Black Panther movement and the fight for equality, when she hears her teacher tell her, “You’re a writer,” and figures out what she believes.  In “what i believe,” she uses repetition to make a statement:

            “I believe in God and evolution.

            I believe in the Bible and the Qur’an.

            … I believe in my mother on a bus and Black people

            refusing to ride…”

Each of the poems in Brown Girl Dreaming could stand alone, but they have much more impact as a whole.  The rhythmic words of Woodson’s experiences make this story an easy read, feeling almost like walking along the timeline of Jacqueline’s life. The emotional and sentimental qualities of the poetry help readers empathize with Jacqueline during her childhood years.  Throughout the book, Jacqueline included an assortment of haikus.  These short, simple poems provide a resting place for the readers’ eyes as they move through the chapters of Jacqueline’s life. 

“what if…”

by Jacqueline Woodson

Maria’s mother never left Bayamón, Puerto Rico,

and my mother never left Greenville.

What if no one had ever walked the grassy fields

that are now Madison Street and said,

Let’s put some houses here.

What if the people in Maria’s building didn’t sell

1279 Madison Street

to Maria’s parents

and our landlord told my mom that he couldn’t rent

1283

to someone who already had four children.

What if the park with the swings wasn’t right across

Knickerbocker Avenue?

What if Maria hadn’t walked out of her building

one day and said,

My name is Maria but my mom calls me Googoo.

What if I had laughed instead of saying,

You’re lucky. I wish I had a nickname, too.

You want to go to the park sometime?

What if she didn’t have a sister and two brothers

and I didn’t have a sister and two brothers

and her dad didn’t teach us to box

and her mother didn’t cook such good food?

I can’t even imagine any of it, Maria says.

Nope, I say.  Neither can I.

Before reading this book:

            Ask:

Have you ever kept a journal or diary?

Explain that this is a journal in verse.

Have you ever written poetry in your journal?

Have you ever looked at your family tree?  Share Jacqueline’s family tree from the beginning of the book.

            Share:

“Hold Fast to Dreams” by Langston Hughes from the beginning of the book.  What does it mean to you?

Follow-up:

            Have students write their own “What if…?” poems.

Suggest:

One Crazy Summer – A book by Rita Williams-Garcia that shares the life of three girls during the same time frame as Jacqueline Woodson’s story.  This story has the girls living with their father and grandmother, leaving home to visit there mother, and experiencing the Black Panther movement.

CITATIONS

Williams-Garcia, Rita. One Crazy Summer. New York: Amistad, 2010.

POETIC FORM

 

The Arrow Finds Its Mark

Heard, Georgia. The Arrow Finds Its Mark: A Book of Found Poems.  Illustrated by Antoine Guilloppé.  New York: Roaring Brook Press, 2012.

Georgia Heard asked poets to put their powers of observation and creativity to the test with “found poems.”  The premise is simple: Use text that already exists, eliminate words, change the line structure, insert punctuation, or define stanzas to create a “found” poem. 

The collection of poems included in The Arrow Finds Its Mark are written by an amazing group of poets and were found in everything from websites to dictionaries to airline magazines.  Being “found” in other materials, the poems in this collection tend toward more rhythmic and less rhyming.  Figurative language can be found in a few of the poems.  “Walden is a perfect forest mirror” is a metaphor in “Walden Pond” and helps readers see how smooth the pond is; personification is used in “First Wins.”  “First kicks open the door” shows the reader how powerful being first can be.

These “found poems” have less to do with emotion and more to do with how words feel and taste and sound as they are rolled around in the readers’ mouths.  The titles often give the poems some direction, bringing meaning to the words. 

The table of contents at the beginning lists each of the poems and authors followed by an introduction explaining what authors were asked to do.  This introduction helps readers understand the “found poem” as well as providing insight into poems to come.  The back of the book lists permissions for each of the poems. 

The simple black and white drawings fit the poems and, with only one poems on a page, the book is an easy read. 

Found by Georgia Heard in The Oxford Thesaurus

“Find a Poem”

Find v.

come across

chance upon

stumble upon

discover

turn up

bring to light

unearth

locate encounter

recover

retrieve

regain

get

realize

acquire

find:

find the cheese too strong

find out the truth

the arrow finds its mark

Before reading this book:

Share Georgia Heard’s poem, “Find a Poem.”  Discuss the way she used a dictionary definition to create this “found” poem.  This gives students an introduction into this poetic form.

Follow-up:

Have students use the “Word Mover” app on their iPads to create their own “found” poems. Then challenge them to look for "found" poems in the world around them.

VERSE NOVEL

INSIDE OUT AND BACK AGAIN



Lai, Thanhha. Inside Out & Back Again. New York: Harper, 2011.

Inside Out and Back Again is a year in the life of Ha, a 10-year-old Vietnamese refugee, trying to make sense of the world around her.  This verse novel, written by Thanhha Lai, chronicles her journey from Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War, through the difficulties adapting to new surroundings, to finally feeling as if she somewhat belongs.

The journal format lends itself well to the verse novel, allowing words to flow rhythmically in a free verse style.  The table of contents explains the four parts of the story – Saigon, At Sea, Alabama, and From Now On - and lists the titles Lai gives to each day, making it possible for the reader to go back to specific points in her life easily.  The emotional impact of the poems in this book is strong, allowing readers to feel the angst, betrayal, fear, and courage of a young girl; perhaps readers will be taken back to moments in their own lives when they had similar feelings.  Lai uses similes and metaphors throughout the book, creating snippets for readers to taste and see and feel as they read the words on the page.  When Lai writes, “Our family sticks together like wet pages,” readers can see exactly what she is describing.  Many of the scenes are able to jump off the pages and into the hearts of the reader, allowing readers to keep a little piece of this young girl with them, somehow making her story   It is easy to imagine the feelings of being in a new place, meeting people who are not easily accepting of the newcomer, and not being able to communicate. 

a part of their own story.

I found myself chuckling out loud as I read about the rules of plurals in the English language.  First, “Whoever invented English must have loved snakes.”  As she progresses with her grammar, “Whoever invented English should be bitten by a snake.”  Such honest thoughts from a young girl’s struggles have a way of wiggling their way into the readers' memories of their own experiences.

"Wishes"

I wish

Brother Khôi wouldn’t

keep inside

how he endures

the hours in school,

that Mother wouldn’t

hide her bleeding fingers,

that Brother Quang wouldn’t

be so angry after work.

I wish

our cowboy could be persuaded

to buy a horse

that I could be invisible

until I can talk back,

that English could be learned

without so many rules.

I wish

Father would appear

in my class

speaking beautiful English

as he does French and Chinese

and hold out his hand

for mine.

Mostly

I wish

I were

still

smart.

                                                            September 11

Before reading this book:

Complete a KWL chart with students, asking what they know about the

Vietnam War and what questions they have.  Some students may never have heard of this war, so it is important to give them a little background.  Without some knowledge, this book will have less of an impact. 

Sharing the picture book, The Colour of Home, by Mary Hoffman, about a first graders first days of school in the United States after leaving Somalia.  This will give them a short simple account of a refugees first days in a new country, helping them see the story from Inside Out and Back Again.

Hoffman, Mary. The Colour of Home. Illustrated by Karin Littlewood. London: Frances Lincoln, 2002.

Follow-up:

Read the poem "Wishes" again.  Ask students to write their own “I Wish” poems, using lines and stanzas to create the poetic structure.