Family Poetry for Celebrating

If you’re spending time with family this weekend, Eloise Greenfield’s new poetry collection, Brothers and Sisters: Family Poems (Amistad/HarperCollins, 2009) is a lovely gem to share. This picture book anthology includes 25 poems arranged in three categories: “Brothers,” “Sisters,” and “Brothers and Sisters” with 7-9 poems in each section and this fun opening poem:
Brothers and Sisters
by Eloise Greenfield

Brothers and sisters
can be dear,
can be company,
can bring cheer,
can start arguments,
can make noise,
can cause tears,
can break toys,
can be few
or can be many,
make me wish
I didn’t have any.
Helpful, funny, and good one day,
next day, they get in my way.
Still, I think no matter what,
I’d rather have them
than not.

Greenfield, Eloise. 2009. Brothers and Sisters: Family Poems. Ill. by Jan Spivey Gilchrist. New York: Amistad/HarperCollins, p.5.

The poem topics run the gamut of authentic kid experiences from wrestling, playing, and laughing, to dealing with new siblings and rivalries, looking up and down to older and younger family members, growing up with teens, being mad and making up, relating to grandparents and aunts and uncles, older members looking back, and family fun, and making plans for the future. The first person child’s voice rings true through every poem, with half of them rhyming and half in free verse.

Greenfield’s frequent collaborator, Jan Spivey Gilchrist illustrates each page with watercolor paintings of kids and families in everyday situations. As I looked back over the images, I realized that they represent a range of African American faces and families—lovely and grounded—and the poems add details of names and moments—and still it all reflects and transcends race and culture to speak to all kinds of kids and families.

Pair this with Eloise Greenfield’s family-centered and classic FIRST poem collection Honey, I Love and Other Love Poems (HarperCollins 1978) or Nikki Grimes’ celebratory Hopscotch Love: A Family Treasury of Love Poems (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard 1999). Greenfield also 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. Plan a poetry picnic for sharing these and other family poems outside spread out on a tablecloth.

In her poetry, Eloise 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?

Remember Eloise again on May 17, coming soon, on her birthday.

Also note: National Library Week is April 12-18

Image credit: cdn.harpercollins.com

Another Hughes gem

It was amazing to me to learn that Langston Hughes was 18 when he composed the poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” the text for this new poem picture book illustrated by E. B. Lewis.

18!

Here is another classic Langston Hughes poem adapted into picture book form, this time with luscious watercolor illustrations by E. B. Lewis. Gorgeous landscape and portrait paintings appear in 13 double-page spreads, with one line (or half line) of the poem accompanying each of these panel illustrations. Each scene is its own strong mini-poster—classically beautiful and full of light.

The art has a very contemporary feel, except for the image of Lincoln and the final page suggesting a Black spirit ancestor. In the “Illustrator’s Note,” Lewis writes that as he worked on this book, “Hughes’s work became as personal as a prayer.”

He goes on to say, “Water has played a powerful role in the lives of black people…. In many ways, my life is like this poem: water almost ended my life; but now, through my watercolors, it has cultivated the spring of it.” He even places an image of himself praying, with the river embracing him, accompanied by the words, “My soul has grown deep like the rivers.” This image is repeated on the back of the dust jacket. Many people much smarter than I am have written about the possible meanings and interpretations of Hughes’s words, and Lewis offers a visual story that is full of emotion and heart.

The full text of the poem also appears on a single page at the end of the book. As an added bonus, look for the audio recording of Hughes himself reading this poem available online here. He even speaks briefly about the backstory behind the writing of this poem.

Sharing this wonderful work with kids will lead to many discussions—about the poem’s meaning, the symbolism of the river, the many places cited, the history of African and African American peoples, and even the use of the word, “Negro.” Teen readers may be inspired to write (or paint) their own poetic visions-- just like Hughes did when he was a teenager (and beyond)!

Hughes, Langston. 2009. The Negro Speaks of Rivers. Ill. by E. B. Lewis. New York: Disney-Hyperion.

Image credit: search.barnesandnoble.com

My People by Hughes and Smith

Close your eyes and imagine yourself in a darkened theater. All is quiet as the audience waits for the current to rise. As it does, a spotlight falls first on one face, then another. A voice rises from afar, slowly intoning the words of Langston Hughes’s classic poem, “My People” as a beautiful variety of people pause, then move across the stage. That’s how Charles R. Smith Jr.’s picture book interpretation of this beloved poem (published by Simon & Schuster, 2009) looks and feels.

An inky black backdrop sets the stage for each page, as sepia-toned close-up photographs of hands, faces, smiles, eyes, and bodies people each page. Blocked images of faces on the endpapers and in filmstrip-like stripes along the edges of the pages here and there add to the cinematic feel of the book. In his note at the end of the book, Smith writes that he wanted to show differing ages and shades of Black people; to show skin color “as bright as the sun and as dark as the night”… “the newness of a newborn smile and the wisdom of wrinkled skin.”

Each double-page spread features one or two or three words of the 33-word poem, in a super-big font. It helps s l o w the poem down for greater visual impact. I’ve heard author and artist Ashley Bryan recite this poem from memory many times, and I can imagine his booming voice saying these words as I turn the pages.

You can find the complete text of the poem in several places, including here and an audio recording read by Langston Hughes himself produced by Caedmon Audio and in the Random House “Voice of the Poet” audio series.

When my children were very young they LOVED close up photographs of babies and big images of faces. I even created simple photo-illustrated “board” books of faces for them (including their own faces) before these kinds of books were readily available. The illustrator, Charles R. Smith, Jr. has an excellent page of kid-friendly activities for experimenting with photography on his information-rich Web site, too. As a side note, check out his photo-interpretation of the classic Kipling poem, If, also in picture book form (and also a Ginee Seo Book; Atheneum/Simon & Schuster, 2007).

I can see kids using the book as a kind of script for performing the poem, focusing on faces and simple movements. I can see kids creating a mural of faces and words combined to reinterpret the poem. I can see kids choosing other Langston Hughes poems, such as “I, Too” or any of the “Dream” poems to interpret visually through photographs or collages creating their own original picture books. What an inspiring and elegant model Smith has created for this poetic “study in simplicity” reminding us that Black people—indeed ALL people—come in “all shapes, sizes, shades, and ages.”

Join our Poetry Friday host, Carol Wilcox at Carol's Corner.

Image credit: http://www.charlesrsmithjr.com/