Janet Wong: NCTE Award Winner

My good friend and collaborator Janet Wong is receiving the NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children at the annual convention (virtually) next week. I am so excited and happy for her! In celebration, I persuaded her to do a Vogue-style interview with me. Here she answers 10 questions about her routines, her childhood, and her writing. Enjoy! (Click on the white triangle in the center to advance the video)

Do yourself a favor and check out one of Janet's books. She is such a gifted poet and storyteller!

And of course, Janet and I have also collaborated on a dozen poetry anthologies featuring hundreds of poems by many different poets. So proud of those! Yay for Pomelo Books!

If you're attending the NCTE convention (virtually), be sure and tune in to her acceptance speech on Saturday, Nov. 20. We'll also be presenting together along with Carole Boston Weatherford and Elizabeth Steinglass on Sunday, Nov. 21. Look for us there:

Meanwhile, head on over to Radio, Rhythm and Rhyme where Matt is hosting our Poetry Friday gathering this week. 

Guest Post: EVICTED! by Alice Faye Duncan

I'm happy to feature another guest post, this time from Alice Faye Duncan, author of the forthcoming picture book, EVICTED! You may remember her from picture book, A Song for Gwendolyn Brooks that I highlighted previously. Here, she writes about the backstory on writing this book about the Tent City Movement in Tennessee that laid the groundwork for the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and about Dr. William Herbert Brewster, whose poetry and songwriting were a huge influence on that time and on her own work.

Poems and Voting Rights 

(Battles Worth the Fight)

by Alice Faye Duncan

How do you write a poem? It begins with an idea that graduates to gumption. Then you wade in the muddle. Write. Revise. Delete. Rewrite. To avoid discouragement, you accept that poems like all creative pursuits, start with disorder. You learn patience. You must. There is no exception as you rewrite and wait for words to sing and make sense. Every ending is the same. A finished poem is birthed in an alchemy of labor, babble, and stumbling. Every poem is a hard-won prize. 

Nothing has tested my pursuit of poetry like the pandemic of 2020. Talk about hard-won writing as family and friends took ill. Some died. Despite sadness and loss, I plodded onward to write EVICTED—THE STRUGGLE FOR THE RIGHT TO VOTE. The illustrator is Charly Palmer. The publication date is January, 2022. 

EVICTED! is the story of Black sharecroppers and the Tent City Movement that inspired John Lewis and college friends to tackle voting rights in the rural South. These Tennessee farmers and their uncelebrated names paved the way for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 

Conveyed through interconnected stories and told through the eyes of a child, EVICTED! combines poetry, prose, and illustrations to shine light on a forgotten history. I was unfamiliar with the Tent City Movement until 2006, when I attended a funeral and met the Memphis photojournalist, Ernest Withers. 

Mr. Withers gave me a book of his famous civil rights photographs. The collection introduced me to sharecroppers and their sad-faced children, standing in a field. A caption said these black laborers were evicted from white farmland and forced to live in tents during 1960, because they registered to vote in Fayette County, Tennessee. Uncles and aunts in my mother’s family had farmed in Fayette County for five decades. I wanted to know more about this movement. 

The Tent City story interested me for a second reason, too. Poet and songwriter, Dr. William Herbert Brewster was born in Fayette County, Tennessee. I had hopes that researching the history of the land would give me an understanding of Brewster’s creative fire. 

William Herbert Brewster wrote the poem I’m Determined to be Somebody Someday. And he wrote classic gospel lyrics like Aretha Franklin’s Old Landmark and Mahalia Jackson’s, Move On Up a Little Higher.

Born to parents who survived American slavery, Dr. Brewster wielded words with a prolific pen. He wrote lyrics for 200 songs. The Smithsonian Institute dedicated a symposium to his genius in 1982. And according to biographer, Peter Guralnick, it was Dr. Brewster’s East Trigg Baptist Church, that partly contributed to Elvis Presley’s love for Gospel music.

I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. During the seventies and eighties, every Black child in the city was required to memorize Dr. Brewster’s poem, I’m Determined to be Somebody Someday. During the early months of the pandemic as I slogged through the disorder of the creative process, Dr. Brewster’s words carried me. 

I was determined to write EVICTED! and offer young learners poems to edify their understanding of voting rights. I was also intentional about making it clear that presently great threats loom over democracy and those American rights. 

This is the power of poetry and why poets must persevere to unravel disorder in the creative process. Poems express weighty ideas in few words. Poems give young learners easy access to historical information. Pandemic or not—poems matter. And just like voting rights—poems are worth the struggle it takes to create them. Write ON! 

Sylvia: Thank you, Alice, for sharing this powerful, personal glimpse. I wasn't familiar with the Tent City Movement either, so I am very grateful for this new book. I hope EVICTED! finds many, many readers. Preorder now! 

Next: head over to A(nother) Year of Reading where our grand poetry ringmaster, Mary Lee is hosting our Poetry Friday gathering. See you there!

Launching: THINGS WE DO

I am excited to announce the launch of a new book with Janet Wong and a collaboration with 25 other poets: THINGS WE DO is a poetry anthology for pre-K (and beyond). Janet and I made a little video to introduce our new book here below (Click on the small white arrow in the middle):

This book is the product of our Anthologies 201 workshop where we have guided participants through the process of creating a poetry anthology from start to finish. Each participant has one poem in the book, alongside a "Who's Who" of established poets like Jack Prelutsky, Linda Sue Park, Joseph Bruchac, Nikki Grimes, Carole Boston Weatherford, Margarita Engle, Jen Bryant, Pat Mora, Grace Lin, Jane Yolen, Padma Venkatraman and Janet Wong, of course.

This anthology features 26 poems, one for each letter of the alphabet from A to Z. Each poet was given a photo prompt for their ekphrastic poem and the result is an energetic, action-packed collection of poems. Back matter includes tips for reading poetry with children, creative activities, and related web resources. 

THINGS WE DO is being featured as a "Hot Off the Press" title for October by the Children's Book Council--we're so excited about that! We're right alongside Janet's new book, Good Luck Gold & More. 

THINGS WE DO is available here from QEP Books in Plano, TX, one of our favorite distributors with awesome customer service. It's also on Amazon here. We are also so pleased to share that all profits from the sale of this book go to IBBY, the International Board on Books for Young People to support their Children in Crisis fund. "The IBBY Children in Crisis Fund provides support for children whose lives have been disrupted through war, civil disorder or natural disaster. The two main activities that are supported by the Fund are the therapeutic use of books and storytelling in the form of bibliotherapy, and the creation or replacement of collections of selected books that are appropriate to the situation." 

Want to see a sample poem? Here is "EAT" by Jack Prelutsky, the poem I read aloud in the video above. Isn't it clever-- and so fun to read aloud!

Several of our poets will be blogging about this new book-- our collective experiment in creating anthologies and indie publishing. Check them out!

The always amazing Jama Kay Rattigan is hosting our Poetry Friday party over at Jama's Alphabet Soup, so don't miss it! Her beautiful blog posts are always so rich, detailed, and delicious! 

Blog Tour: FOR EVERY LITTLE THING

I'm happy to be part of the blog tour for the lovely poetry collection, For Every Little Thing: Poems and Prayers to Celebrate the Day selected by Nancy Tupper Ling and June Cotner and illustrated by Helen Cann. Here, Nancy gives us a glimpse behind the scenes to share a few nuggets about the creation of this beautiful book. In a nutshell, "Arranged from waking up to falling asleep, For Every Little Thing is an engaging collection of the day and its delights. This inspirational anthology gathers classic selections, modern prayers, and new poems from multiple cultures and faiths. From Emily Dickinson to Amma, from Ken Nesbitt to Rabbi Rami M. Shapiro, fifty-one voices encourage children to be present and thankful at all hours." 

Nancy writes: 

So you might ask how I got started creating anthologies such as FOR EVERY LITTLE THING? The answer is a bit surprising. Several years ago, in an interview with the amazing Debbi Ridpath Ohi, I said “Don’t be afraid to ask questions. One question can make all the difference.” Debbi then made an artistic rendering of my reply. Such fun!

It many ways it was because of one question that I became a coauthor with my mentor, June Cotner. While June had published several of my poems in her anthologies over the years, it was in 2011 that I learned that her assistant had moved away. So I asked one simple question: “Is there anything I can help you with?” Her answer shocked me: “Well Nancy, how would you like to coauthor a book with me?” If I’d never asked, I wouldn’t have had the privilege of creating anthologies with June. This led to our creation of Toasts (Viva Editions); Family Celebrations (Andrews McMeel); For Every Little Thing (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers) and next up Bless the Earth: A Children’s Book of Prayers and Poems for Honoring the Earth (Convergent). We have a few more in our back pockets as well.

That said, the idea for the anthology, FOR EVERY LITTLE THING, started with the title “Counting Blessings.” Based on a poem by contributor, Barbara Younger, it has a theme of gratitude. As we started gathering poems to include, I was inspired to write a poem called “For Every Little Thing.” Voila! This soon became the title poem. 

I know from your own beautiful creations, Sylvia, that you are fully aware how much work goes on behind the scenes of every anthology. Over the years, June built up over 800 contributors who provide fresh content for her books. Much of the work with anthologies relates to keeping track of current submissions and past ones, so we can give preliminary acceptances for poems that have a good chance of being included in a particular book. Plus we organize final acceptances, and permissions—all in our Access database program. 

FOR EVERY LITTLE THING features poems from both famous authors and lesser-known contributors.  This variety is one of the delightful aspects of June’s books. Certainly, each poem has a story behind it. For example, my poem entitled “Tonight . . .” was inspired by my six-year old daughter. We were visiting family in San Francisco, and after a beautiful day, she said: “Mama, tonight I will dream of the purple flowers, the ones that made you smile today. They’ll dance overhead. Their blossoms looked like fingers waving to the people. And I will dream that an orange fox sits beside me.” And that became the poem below. Sometimes poems come to us as gifts and we need to be ready to receive them.

Thankfully, after much research and gathering of our initial poems for our proposal, we signed with Eerdmans in March 2019. In turn, they hired illustrator Helen Cann https://helencann.co.uk/ to bring our poems to life. She is also a mapmaker, and her talent is reflected in the details of her gorgeous work:

Of course, not everything goes smoothly in a book’s creation, and there are always difficult decisions along the way. Especially with an anthology, sometimes a gorgeous poem doesn’t make the final cut just because it’s a bit too long for the page or another poem captures the sentiment slightly better or it will cost a fortune for that perfect Langston Hughes piece, and we already included several poems with high permission fees. 

And then there was the pandemic! Thankfully, June and I had finished the manuscript when everything hit the fan in 2020, but our illustrator, Helen Cann, had to work through multiple lockdowns in England. As she said, “I was grateful for such a large project that not only kept me employed when so many others were losing their jobs, but it kept my brain occupied at a time of great stress.” Helen’s post about this period of time is really beautiful, if your readers would like to see how the practice of gratitude for “the smaller things” in life can really provide hope.

We certainly hope our readers find this joy and hope in FOR EVERY LITTLE THING. And sometimes a good belly laugh will do as well. My husband, Vincent, gave me this one day when he put a stickie on top of the book cover, making sure that I’m grateful for the “little Lings” in our lives as well (although our two girls are both in college now). It’s the little things that bring a smile. 

Sylvia: Thank you, Nancy, for sharing these stories behind the creation of this book and of some of the poems. It's always fascinating to learn how a book comes to be!

Now, be sure to visit Bridget's blog, wee words for wee ones where the Poetry Friday family is gathering this week. 

Hispanic/Latino Poetry for Young People 2021

As Hispanic Heritage Month comes to a close, I'd like to take a moment to celebrate the poetry titles out in 2021 authored/edited by Hispanic or Latino writers. I count 9, but I may have missed some, so please correct me, if you know of others. Meanwhile, here's my list thus far: 

• Ak'abal, Humberto. 2021. Aquí era el paraíso/ Here Was Paradise. Ill. by Amelia Lau Carling. Toronto: Groundwood Books. 
• Engle, Margarita. 2021. A Song of Frutas. Ill. by Sara Palacios. New York: Atheneum.
• Engle, Margarita. 2021. Your Heart, My Sky. New York: Atheneum.
• Fennell, Saraciea, ed. 2021. Wild Tongues Can’t Be Tamed: 15 Voices from the Latinx Diaspora. New York: Macmillan/Flatiron.
• Ferrada, Maria José. Niños: Poems for the Lost Children of Chile. Ill. by María Elena Valdez. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
• Mora, Pat. 2021. My Magic Wand. Ill. by Amber Alvarez. New York: Lee & Low. 
• Saldaña, René, Jr. Ed. 2021. I Sing: The Body: Poems about Body Image. McAllen, TX: Juvented Press. 
• Varela, Alessandra Narváez. 2021. Thirty Talks Weird Love. El Paso, TX: Cinco Puntos Press.
• Velasquez, Elisabet. 2021. When We Make It. New York: Dial.

I'm happy to see some of my favorite poets on the list and always thrilled to encounter new names. Plus, you'll notice anthologies, picture book collections, and novels in verse-- the whole spectrum. I have a new Latina granddaughter, so I am on the lookout for new books to share with her as she grows that reflect her heritage(s). I hope there will be more and more and more as she grows up! 

Now head on over to Live Your Poem where the beautiful Irene Latham is hosting our Poetry Friday revelries! 

Guest post: BORN BEHIND BARS by Padma Venkatraman

I'm so happy to share my blog space with award-winning author, poet (and scientist) Padma Venkatraman. You may be familiar with her novels, Climbing the Stairs, Island's End, A Time to Dance, and The Bridge Home. And she has a brand new just-released novel, Born Behind Bars. Here she writes about her journey to poetry and her struggle with how to format and categorize Born Behind Bars.

BORN BEHIND BARS: 

PROSE, VERSE OR PROSE POEM?

by Padma Venkatraman

After I completed my first draft of A TIME TO DANCE (years ago) I had a panic attack. I was trained as an oceanographer – what right did I have to write poetry?

I’ve always loved poetry and read and listened to poetry, so I had a lot of poet friends and colleagues whom I could reach out to. Thanks to the encouragement I received from Richard Blanco, Gregory Pardlo, Scott Hightower, Rigoberto Gonzalez, and Kristin Prevallet, who visited the University of Rhode Island, and colleagues at the university, including Mary Capello, Peter Covino, Jody Lisberger and Talvikki Ansel, I persevered.

Peter Johnson, a poet who is also the acclaimed author of novels for young people (such as WHAT HAPPENED, and, most recently, SHOT), went the extra mile – literally. He drove over two bridges to meet me (and this is a huge deal in our little state of Rhode Island where the joke is that we pack a lunch or two if we have to drive across even one bridge). He gave me a pep talk and also a few copies of The Prose Poem: An International Journal, which he’d edited. 

 

A TIME TO DANCE wasn’t prose poetry. I could hear dance rhythms in my head that I wanted to see on paper. I sensed that line breaks were vital to the telling of that story (about a dancer who meets with an accident where she sustains a below-knee injury, and who, as she recovers, discovers the spiritual depth of her art), and I agonized over line-breaks as I worked. 

 

Yet, I was fascinated by the prose poem, too, as a form – and wondered if, some day, I might experiment with it. 

 

As I created the first drafts of BORN BEHIND BARS, I realized that in my mind, I was seeing the text the way that prose poems are most often formatted: justified on both sides, and with an entire blank line in between paragraphs. In some way, this form, to me embodied and resonated the iron bars on the window through which my protagonist peers in the first scene of the novel. I love how the form of BORN BEHIND BARS augments the content, something I strive for in every poem I write. 

Is it silly to be so much in love with the look of text on a page? Perhaps. But in my defense, I remember David Almond once talking about how he – if I remember right – went in and put spaces here and there in his text – because it looked better that way on the page. 

 

Of course, story mattered to me equally as I revised, with attention to plot, and character and dialogue.

 

When BORN BEHIND BARS opens, the protagonist, Kabir, has lived in jail all his life. His only escape is through his imagination: he dreams of freedom, of exploring the world outside with his unjustly incarcerated mother. When he is suddenly released, he clings desperately to the hope that he can set her free, although society is prejudiced against him because of his poverty and low caste. His longing to see justice done drives his actions – and as I wrote, I kept thinking of these beautiful Langston Hughes lines – Hold fast to dreams/ For if dreams die / Life is a broken-winged bird / That cannot fly. 

The lines I was placing on the page resembled the tangible hurdles Kabir faced, but his songs slipped past them the way a songbird’s voice cannot be contained by the bars of its cage, and Kabir’s dreams filled the white spaces among the lines. Poetry and prose began to blur, and Kabir’s story took shape on the common ground between them. I’ve always thought of white space in a poem as a place that is sacred – the space where the poet meets the reader – the spiritual plane, in a sense, that they share together. I’ve always thought of stories as half-bridges – a similar metaphor – because each story is only half-written, even when it is completely written, in that the reader must finish it in his/her/their own way. My readers are my co-creators, working with me to re-create each story, each poem. Although my name may be associated with a piece, each time it’s read, the reader makes something new out of it – and in each reader’s mind and heart, is a creation that not even I, who wrote the novel or poem, can ever fully comprehend. This, to me, is the magic of story. And in poem, those spaces are a vital invitation to the reader to enter into a deep, vast, emotional and imaginative landscape.

As I revised BORN BEHIND BARS, I paid attention to the poetic quality of each chapter, each paragraph, each line – the way that a prose poet should. Poetic techniques such as compression, fragmentation, repetition and rhythm were at the forefront of my mind, although I also wanted, equally, to ensure that every bit of dialogue felt natural and that the narrative voice was true to that of my child protagonist, Kabir. 

When I was done, I asked Newbery Honor winner and Young People’s Poet Laureate emerita Margarita Engle whether she thought BORN BEHIND BARS was a poem or prose, or a prose poem. A prose poem is a hybrid form, she said, suggesting to me that people were likely to classify it one or the other. She seemed to agree with me that it was. My beloved editor Nancy Paulsen said she felt the voice had a fable-like quality to it, but that it wasn’t a prose poem.

An educator recently observed – to my delight – THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN also has the same look and is formatted the same way. So, one thing is certain. If indeed BORN BEHIND BARS is a prose poem, it’s by far not the first prose poem written for young people. THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET could be considered a prose poem. So could GOD LOVES HAIR. 

Peter Johnson defines the prose poem as a form that can straddle the fine line between comedy and tragedy: “the prose poem plants one foot in prose, the other in poetry, both heels resting precariously on banana peels.” But perhaps the academic definition of a prose poem isn’t as important as the fact that I absolutely love everything about the way that BORN BEHIND BARS turned out, down to the last detail of formatting the text! 

Remembering Eloise Greenfield

Last month we lost a giant in the world of poetry for children: Eloise Greenfield. I wanted to take a moment to pay tribute to her work and her life. I've been a fan for a long time and included her in my reference book, Poetry People. Here's an excerpt from that book.

Eloise Greenfield was born on May 17, 1929, in Parmele, North Carolina. She attended Miner Teachers College (now University of the District of Columbia), was married, and had two children. She worked in Washington, D.C. in the U.S. Patent Office and with  the District of Columbia Black Writers' Workshop for several years. Her hobbies include listening to music and playing the piano. She has won a multitude of awards including American Library Association Notable Book citations, the Carter G. Woodson Book Award, Jane Addams Children's Book Award, Council on Interracial Books for Children award for her body of work, Coretta Scott King Award, the National Council of Teachers of English Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children, and many lifetime achievement awards. You can find out more in the obituaries from Publishers Weekly here or in The New York Times here and in The Washington Post here. You can also find an interview with her at the The Brown Bookshelf here and a terrific profile by Rudine Sims Bishop for Language Arts here.

Eloise Greenfield is an acclaimed writer of prose and poetry for younger readers whose work is recognized for presenting strong portraits of loving African American families. Greenfield has authored books of poetry, picture books, biography, memoir, board books and more, many of which have been illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist. She teamed with her mother to create Childtimes: A Three-Generation Memoir, an autobiographical work that describes the childhood memories of Greenfield, her mother, and her maternal grandmother.

Greenfield’s first collection of poetry for children, Honey, I Love, and Other Love Poems (HarperCollins 1978), describes the experiences of a young black girl and deals with relationships involving family, friends, and schoolmates. This popular Reading Rainbow book is an amazing masterpiece from a poet who captures the unique dimensions of the African American experience (such as in her homage “Harriet Tubman”), while also tapping into the universal experiences of childhood (expressed in the wondering poem “By Myself”). From its small trim size to the Dillons’ inviting black, white, and gold illustrations, these sixteen short poems capture feelings of love, grief, pride, and pleasure—all from the point of view of a child. It was republished as a stand-alone picture book with the same title by HarperCollins in 2003.

The poem, “Harriet Tubman” is strong and rhythmic narrative poem that invites children to join in on the repeated refrain which begins “Harriet Tubman didn’t take no stuff.” Pair Greenfield’s poem with “The Conductor was a Woman” by Carole Boston Weatherford in Remember The Bridge: Poems of a People (Philomel 2002). This volume even includes a sepia-tone photograph of Tubman. Follow up with a picture book version of Harriet Tubman’s life, Minty: A Story of Young Harriet Tubman (Dial 1996) by Alan Schroeder, beautifully illustrated by Jerry Pinkney. Older children may also enjoy the nonfiction book, Sojourner Truth: "Ain't I a Woman? by Patricia McKissack and Fredrick McKissack (1992). Read aloud the chapter "Free Belle" or "Ain't I a Woman?" to lure readers in the middle grades to read the rest of her story on their own. Each of these chapters function as a story in itself about this fascinating woman and the times she lived in, first as a slave, then as a free woman.

Harriet Tubman (in Honey I Love)

by Eloise Greenfield

Harriet Tubman didn't take no stuff

Wasn't scared of nothing neither

Didn't come in this world to be no slave

And wasn't going to stay one either

 

"Farewell!" she sang to her friends one night

She was mighty sad to leave 'em

But she ran away that dark, hot night

Ran looking for her freedom

 

She ran to the woods and she ran through the woods

With the slave catcher right behind her

And she kept on going till she got to the North

Where those mean men couldn't find her

 

Nineteen times she went back South

To get three hundred others

She ran for her freedom nineteen times

To save black sisters and brothers

 

Harriet Tubman didn't take no stuff

Wasn't scared of nothing neither

Didn't come in this world to be no slave

And didn't stay one either

And didn't stay one either

In her poetry, Greenfield tries to involve children in their own worlds. In Night on Neighborhood Street (Dial 1991), Greenfield brings her young readers into the happenings around them examining the life of an urban community. The volume's seventeen poems show children in typical situations, including attending church and playing games with their families. Link this book with Carole Boston Weatherford’s collection, Sidewalk Chalk; Poems of the City (Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press 2001) with poems about the laundromat, local diner, city market, barbershop or Lilian Moore’s Mural on Second Avenue and Other City Poems (Candlewick 2005) which features poems about the city park, shop windows, skylines and bridges, and construction sites. Invite the children to list places they enjoy in their communities. What poems might they write to celebrate their favorite spots? 

Eloise Greenfield created a memorable character in her poetry book, Nathaniel Talking (Writers & Readers Publishing 1993) in which a nine year old boy shares his thoughts, dreams, and hopes in a series of first person poems. Match this collection with the Danitra Brown poetry books by Nikki Grimes for the girl’s point of view. And look for Janet Wong’s Good Luck Gold and Other Poems (Simon & Schuster 1994) and A Suitcase of Seaweed, and Other Poems (Simon & Schuster, 1996) for more child perspectives on growing up in America. 

Education

by Eloise Greenfield

one day I was dumb enough

to let somebody bet me

into a fight

and then I was mad with two

stupid boys

the one who was hitting me

and the one who was hitting

him

For another view on culture, share Greenfield’s Under the Sunday Tree (HarperCollins 1988), a celebration of life in the Bahamas. Complement these poems with anthologies assembled by Caribbean poets John Agard and Grace Nichols or consider Under The Breadfruit Tree: Island Poems (Boyds Mills Press 1998) by Monica Gunning. 

For one more poem gem by Eloise Greenfield, don't miss "Things" from

often performed with gusto by Ashley Bryan, a legend himself!

Things  (in Honey I Love)

by Eloise Greenfield

Went to the corner

Walked in the store

Bought me some candy

Ain't got it no more

Ain't got it no more

 

Went to the beach

Played on the shore

Built me a sandhouse

Ain't got it no more

Ain't got it no more 

Went to the kitchen

Lay down on the floor

Made me a poem

Still got it

Still got it

Eloise Greenfield published nearly 50 books for young people and influenced a generation of poets. Her poetry is strong in sound, rhyme and rhythm-- so fun to read aloud. Plus she represents the experience of African American children, families, and history, from ordinary daily life to historic heroes. She once said, “I want to give children a true knowledge of black heritage, including both the African and the American experiences. The distortions of black history have been manifold and ceaseless. A true history must be the concern of every black writer. It is necessary for black children to have a true knowledge of their past and present, in order that they may develop an informed sense of direction for their future.” I would say she definitely achieved this goal! Look for her books and share her poetry now! Here are a few of my favorites: 

Greenfield, Eloise. 1977. Africa Dream. New York: John Day Co. Reprinted, New York: HarperTrophy, 1992.

Greenfield, Eloise. 1978. Honey, I Love and Other Love Poems. New York: HarperCollins. 

Greenfield, Eloise. 1988. Nathaniel Talking. New York: Black Butterfly Children's Books. 

Greenfield, Eloise. 1988. Under the Sunday Tree. New York: Harper & Row. 

Greenfield, Eloise. 1993. Childtimes: A Three-Generation Memoir. New York: HarperCollins.

Greenfield, Eloise. 1996. Night on Neighborhood Street. New York: Puffin Pied Piper. Reprinted, Jacksonville, IL: Bound to Stay Bound, 1999.

Greenfield, Eloise. 2004. In the Land of Words. New York: HarperCollins. 

Greenfield, Eloise. 2006. The Friendly Four. Ill. by Jan Spivey Gilchrist. New York: HarperCollins. 

Greenfield, Eloise. 2008. Brothers and Sisters: Family Poems. New York: Amistad/HarperCollins.

Greenfield, Eloise. 2011. The Great Migration: Journey to the North. Ill. by Jan Spivey Gilchrist. New York: Amistad/HarperCollins. 

Greenfield, Eloise. 2019. Thinker: My Puppy Poet and Me. Ill. by Ehsan Abdollahi. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks/Jabberwocky.

Now head on over to My Juicy Little Universe where poet and teacher Heidi Mordhorst is hosting our Poetry Friday gathering!

Guest post: Chris Baron: THE MAGICAL IMPERFECT

I'm thrilled to feature professor and author Chris Baron in a guest post about his latest novel in verse, The Magical Imperfect. Here, he shares a few poems that were NOT included in the book, along with a bit of backstory. I love how this gives you a bit more insight into the characters. See what you think! 

Chris writes:

Every book is a new experience. Writing The Magical Imperfect forced me to develop new and practical strategies for drafting.  The story is full of so many complex layers, intergenerational relationships, faith, magic, chronic illness, the sacred, baseball, earthquakes, and so much more! Writing this story stretched me in every possible way as a writer, researcher, father, and husband… but it’s been worth it. And as in any manuscript there are poems (literally thousands of words) left out…

Here are a few poems that I absolutely loved, but that didn’t quite fit with the story in its current form.

Etan, as an artist, is a huge part of the story. I wrote a lot of poems about his artwork. While I like the poem so much, it didn’t fit or move the story as it needed to.

Crayons

It’s a known fact

that crayons are 

two parts wax

one thousand parts magic

so it makes perfect sense

on a thirsty July morning

to wet the tip of your finger

and smear the wax

until it becomes

what you need it to be,

to quickly draw a container

to hold the juice before 

it runs out over the page

And of course, BASEBALL!  So much of the book is wrapped up in baseball and friendship. The friendship between Etan and Jordan was very important early on. They grew up playing baseball together, and in early drafts of the book, Jordan moved away.  But the character of Jordan changed A LOT. This is often the hardest part of creating stories… when we love characters and their relationships, but then we have to transform them into something else. This short poem didn’t make it in, but it helps deepen the empathy for Etan and his life as an outcast as we learn about how his friend moved away. I think we can all relate to the way this feels.

New School

The day after Jordan

broke the record

for stolen bases,

we went to his house

to help him pack.

Do you think they’ll have baseball 

at your new school? I ask.

No, they have swimming.

I’m supposed to start that.

It’s impossible to imagine Jordan

NOT playing baseball.

Why do you have to move there at all?

I don’t know, it sucks.

I guess it’s closer 

to where my father's Law firm is.

We finish our cokes.

You can visit me, Etan, in the city?

Yeah. I fake smiled.

Then we kept packing

somehow knowing

how hard it would be.

Eczema

Writing about Malia was complicated. Eczema is very complicated. For people who haven’t experienced it--it can be difficult to understand. Most people have rashes that itch, but as my wife explains it, she has “itches that rash.” Ella has suffered from extreme eczema off and on her whole life. Her memoir, Itchy Brown Girl Seeks Employment (2009) is about a life lived with this skin disease. It’s something we know well. It’s something we don’t learn about often enough in books. 

In The Magical Imperfect, Malia suffers a similar flare-up of eczema. It’s so bad that she is isolated from school because of the way other kids treat her--calling her “the creature.” But it’s really about her own discomfort. I wrote numerous poems about Malia dealing with her eczema. I wanted to make sure that in some way, her actions and reactions would be true and help be a window and a mirror for readers. But of course, not every word makes it into the book! Much of this poem is in there, but there are more severe versions like this one…

I look at Malia, 

and I notice something  

I hadn’t seen before. 

She’s scratching 

the arm inside her blanket

and blood is coming through.

I never realized it 

because it’s been hidden  

but I can see the way 

her arm moves, 

she scratches, 

has been scratching 

almost the whole time. 

 

This last poem is part of a HUGE group of what I named “The Golem” poems.  (maybe a picture book one day)! One of the core themes of the book is that, “you are not alone.” I wrote chapters about the golem being born and immediately running away and hiding scared and feeling alone until Etan and Malia start to try to connect with this being they brought to life from ancient clay..  Obviously, this didn’t fit within the limits of THIS book, but here is a taste of that alternate world where maybe it might have.

New friend

Somewhere in the forest

beneath the redwoods

the golem waits 

for his creators.

He folds clovers 

in his muddy hands

twisting yellow flowers

into tiny bouquets

and leaving them 

on the sitting stones

When Etan and Malia

come to sing and draw

they find the stones

covered in clover stems

and dried mud.

Footprints sink

deep into the muck

near the pool.

Etan leaves drawings

of not two, but three friends

sitting together on the stones.

Malia sings in the warm afternoon

and they wait

for the moment 

when the shy and swirling light

of bright and watery eyes

will come up from the mud

and whisper, friend.

Thank you, Chris. This is so moving, fascinating, and powerful. I love the added layers that these poems give us in reading The Magical Imperfect. I hope we see that Golem picture book one day, too. Thanks so much for sharing these poems and this glimpse with us.

Now, head on over to Unexpected Intersections where Elisabeth is hosting Poetry Friday.