We Need to Know Wilder Women!
Before Poetry-Month-March slips away, lets dig a bit into a few books that perform very different functions and still share a shovel. I want to explore a few books by Nikki Grimes and Lucille Clifton, but first a digression.
Long ago I mailed a letter to Walter Dean Myers’ home congratulating him on his newly published book, Monster. In my letter, I asked Walter whether the issues he writes about are appropriate for a Newbery-aged audience. My feeling was that if the Newbery committee had any guts at all, Monster would be the Newbery winner. Years later, the VERY sophisticated Carver: A Life in Poems, by the amazing Marilyn Nelson received Newbery recognition, which supplies evidence that such a thing is possible.
Walter and I had a conversation that lasted more than a decade about the differences in sensibilities that are possible in mostly white and mostly black communities. It is my opinion that educators are too quick to remove tough topics from very young students and often do not realize how important it is for young minds to engage in subjects that often smack them in the face daily. Really gifted authors are able to do this successfully and it can be life saving. When your daily life includes watching your father whip a garden hose with a cement sprinkler attached, into the front tooth of your sister, knocking it out, you MUST have a way to interact with your daily realities. Our response is often to suppress certain topics, in the belief that we are protecting, and thus, helping students.
This brings us to Lucille Clifton and her brilliant, Everett Anderson’s Goodbye (illustrated by Ann Grifalconi), which was the 1984 Coretta Scott King award winner for authors. Clifton has the audacity of dealing with the five stages of grief for our youngest readers: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In the spreads that follow, usually one per stage, she shows Everett learning to cope with his father’s death. Everett’s mother is there and it is clear that she loves him through all of the stages. Death, unfortunately, happens to us all. Teachers often make the mistake of thinking that a book like this one is only appropriate when death comes knocking at a student’s door. Often, however, when the death happens, a book like this is too late. Death is a part of life and should be a part of our education. If teachers do not deal with ALL aspects of living — the joy, the wonder, the surprise, the happiness, the sadness, the depression, the fear, the love — they miss an opportunity to be seen as a relevant part of the students’ education.
Clifton has another book featuring Everett Anderson, One of the Problems of Everett Anderson (illustrated again by Ann Grifalconi). This book includes this text: “Everett Anderson sits at home wondering what he should say or do. A room can be lonely when a boy, not grown, every day sees his new friend Greg with a scar or a bruise mark on his leg.” Everett’s sister tries to tell him that it is none of his business. Everett tells his mother but the text shows an awareness that telling a teacher or other adult may not be the best for Greg and his family. Everett HAS told his mother and he is trusting that his mother may be able to do something new for Greg. In the meantime, Everett decides that he can listen to Greg and hug him. The book ends with, “Sometimes the little things you do make a difference. Everett Anderson hopes that’s true.”
I wish I had a book like this one when I watched my father shoot a bullet into the bed of my brother. I am very happy that I had plenty of books like Henry Huggins too. The point is that when we adopt the attitude that we cannot deal with certain topics, when we believe that children have enough problems in life to be forced to confront them when reading, we do them a disservice. Students need to know how to cope with death. They need to know that even small steps are good steps for friends with big problems. They need to see a way forward when life seems bleak. A steady diet of books like these Everett Anderson books is just as much a mistake as none. Thank God that Clifton was not afraid to walk on the wild side with her books for children (and I have not even mentioned The Boy Who Didn’t Believe in Spring or any of her other Everett Anderson books or other children’s books)!
Time to grab that shovel and dig for the wild treasure that is buried in levels and layers of Nikki Grimes winged words! The first book I want to share is Garvey’s Choice, a book with its own galaxy of starred reviews. First a quiz: Name five books featuring young middle school males who have eating problems — bonus points if it is written in tanka poems and has a hopeful ending. “Mom’s got a talent / for origami, but she / can’t fold me into / the jock Dad wants me to be.” The quiz question, hopefully, has us wondering how that overweight young man finds a way forward in literature for children. Grimes is wild enough to think that both young men and young women need to see possibilities in the books they read (see, for example, Damaris in Halfway to Perfect — one of the Dyamonde Daniel books).
One thing that Grimes knows is that children need a foundation. If you read about Grimes’ life, you know that she was wild enough to seek out and demand mentors because forging a life is too hard to do without help. Read, for example, about Grimes’ relationship with James Baldwin. Born in Harlem Renaissance territory, with the help of a good teacher,
Grimes found herself in these poets. Now she wants students to have this same opportunity to find connections with Georgia Douglas Johnson, Anne Spencer, Mary Miller, Effie Lee Newsome, Angelina Weld Grimke, as well as Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, and others. This Harlem Renaissance community gave Grimes the confidence to see herself as a contributor. Grimes also knows that even though a mentor like Baldwin is crucial, we need a community. It really helps if that community is one that we trust to represent who we are and understand where we have been.
I am white and I am male. What I know from my years in the classroom is that for every Nikki Grimes, there are dozens of young women who have not felt a connection, have not developed their unique voice, have not told their story, have not become the surgeon or architect or scientist or artist that would make all our lives better. We do not have a method for calculating lost potential, but we have lost too much. I HAVE LOST TOO MUCH! That is why I am so happy to blog about Nikki Grimes and tell you to buy her amazing, One Last Word! Here is the good news: It is fun to read! It is filled with gorgeous artwork, including an illustration by Nikki Grimes herself (and she is an artist!).
This book, featuring the Harlem Renaissance poets is done in the form of a Golden Shovel. Not familiar with this poetic form? A Golden Shovel is a poetic form that embraces intertextuality. Grimes takes a line, a stanza, or even an entire poem written by a poet of the Harlem Renaissance and uses each word as the end word in her poem. Consequently, Grimes digs into a poem by, say, Georgia Douglas Johnson and builds her images and metaphors on top of that existing structure. The brilliance of this book is that Georgia Douglas Johnson’s Calling Dreams still has its own power and now it also has Grimes’ vision of how to see Johnson’s words in today’s society. The poems in this book are filled with creations like Dunbar’s We Wear the Mask. Although Dunbar’s poetry is just prior to the dates of the Harlem Renaissance, this poem is just as relevant today as it was when first written, maybe even more so. We continue to struggle with ways to combat racism in today’s world. Jabari may not be wearing the identical mask that Dunbar would have donned, but that expectation of not showing (or being able to show) your true face in public is still present (Jabari Unmasked). Look for this book to win awards! If possible, One Last Word has even MORE stars than Garvey’s Choice!
Last January the American Library Association awarded its Laura Ingalls Wilder award for outstanding contribution over the years to the literature for children to Nikki Grimes. One Last Word is Nikki Grimes’ most recent book. It is my hope that there will be MANY more words from Grimes and even more awards. We need wild women like her!
Two black women. Two women poets. Two brave humans! We need books that deal with death, abuse, eating disorders, racism, and a host of other concerns that students of all ages will experience. We see from these books by Grimes and Clifton that it is possible to validate these concerns that children DO have in a way that is age appropriate and even hopeful. I would love to know your thoughts.
