Legacy: Women Poets of the Harlem Renaissance by Nikki Grimes

 

Genre: Poetry
Source: I own a copy

 I love Nikki Grimes' poetry.  In this book, she starts out giving us a bit of history about the impact African American women have made on the world of poetry.  It has just been in the last couple of years that we have started seeing some of their poetry in our Language Arts books in school. We read poetry by Langston Hughes all the time, and have for years. Nikki's book is divided into three sections: Heritage, Earth Mother, and Taking Notice.  Each section has twelve to fifteen poems. If you are not familiar with this author's writing style she writes something called golden shovel poems. This is not something she invented. A golden shovel poem as she explains in her book goes something like this.

Find a poem that speaks to you. Copy it down.  Then choose a line that speaks to you or the whole poem. Write it one word at a time down the right had side of the paper. Create your poem in front of it so that the last word of the line is the word from the other poem.  When I first introduce my students to these they moan and groan because they are difficult. At the end of the unit when they write about the book of poetry they have written the majority tell me their favorite style to write was the Golden Shovel poem.  One of the reasons is because the punctuation can often end up in the middle of a line.  When I exaplained that to my students one spoke up and said, "It seems that with poetry, we should have the right to do it the way we want and put punctuation where we want, so this just makes sense."  Yes it does.  This was a child who told me up front they would create the book of poetry for the grade, but they hated poetry. When they wrote their final page of their book reflecting on their poetry they deicded they liked it because they could write what they wanted and express themselves.  Mission accomplished.  

Here is my quick and crude example of a golden shovel poem.

Fog by Carl Sandburg

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on

Memories by Sandra Stiles

Memories I have tucked away become lost in my mind. The

time has robbed me of all that is precious, forming a fog

that slips in at the most inopportune times. It comes

when am with you trying to remember who you are. Come on

this journey down memory lane with me when you were little

and snuggled next to me purring words of love like a cat

who has found comfort sitting quietly wrapped around your feet.

One Last Word, is another book of poetry about the Harlem Renaissance that Nikki Grimes has written.  I love her work. She has inspired many other writers.  I would not have known about Nikki's work had it not been for me reading the novel-in-verse book Hidden by Helen Frost. She explained her writing style for one of her characters as golden shovel poems and pointed me toward Nikki Grimes. Had it not been for her, it might have taken me longer to discover this wonderful author and her wonderful writing style.