Social Studies Poetry: Out of the Dust

Hesse, Karen. 1997. Out of the Dust. New York: Scholastic. ISBN 0590371258.

Review and Critical Analysis
Out of the Dust is the 1998 Newbery Medal winning verse novel by Karen Hesse. Thirteen year-old Billie Jo narrates the events of her life from January 1934 to December 1935, a time frame in which a tragic accident claims the life of her mother and unborn baby brother, leaving Billie Jo and her father alone in the middle of the Dust Bowl.

Billie Jo was a good student and talented piano player, so when her hands are severely burned in the accident, music--her emotional outlet--is taken from her. While Billie Jo still had her father, his own overwhelming sorrow and guilt leave her feeling as though she is just another burden he must bear. Only when she tries to run away from the dust and all it brings does Billie Jo realize that home is a part of you that can't be escaped.

Hesse's poems are written in a simple language the reflects the emotions of Billie Jo. Through her narration, we see her grief, her inability to communicate with her father, and her frustration with her new limitations. In "Those Hands," she mourns the changes in her life saying, "My father used to say, why not put those hands to good use?/He doesn't say anything about 'those hands' anymore." Even the figurative language used fits with the tone established by the desolate wasteland of the plains. For example, in "Homeward Bound," Billie Jo describes being away from home as "Lonelier than the wind./Emptier than the sky./More silent than the dust," illustrating the pervasiveness of dust, isolation, and desperation during the time frame.

Out of the Dust is a perfect novel to introduce middle grade readers to the devastation of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. It combines an accurate depiction of the historical context and the classic themes of school, guilt, parent/child conflict, growing up, and suffering loss that many young readers will identify with.

Example Poem

Fifty Miles South of Amarillo

In Amarillo,
wind
blew plate-glass windows in,
tore electric signs down,
ripped wheat
straight out of the ground.

February 1934

Activity
Before sharing this poem with students, find out what they already know about the Dust Bowl. You may need to supply some basic facts about the desolate conditions of the land in Oklahoma and surrounding states. You may wish to show students historical photographs like those available in the photo gallery on the website for Ken Burns's documentary The Dust Bowl (Available here.) Be sure to preview the images to make sure they are appropriate for your audience.

Read the poem aloud with students as they follow along with a printed or projected copy. First, read just so students get a feel for the poem, and then read again 1-2 times, encouraging students to note the location, the subject of the poem, and the actions of that subject. As an extension, have students view additional photographs from the Dust Bowl or other significant periods in history. Allow them to create original poems to share what they can determine about the location or setting, subject, and actions detectible in the photograph. Pictures and poems can be shared by displaying them in the library classroom or hallway.

"The Dust Bowl: Photo Gallery." PBS.org. http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/dustbowl/photos/ (retrieved March 24, 2017).

Biographical Poetry: Talkin' About Bessie

Grimes, Nikki. 2002. Talkin' About Bessie: The Story of Aviator Elizabeth Coleman. Illustrated by E.B. Lewis. New York: Orchard Books. ISBN: 0439352436.

Review and Critical Analysis
In Talkin' About Bessie, Nikki Grimes tells the story of aviation pioneer Elizabeth "Bessie" Coleman through a series of 21 free verse poems. Faced with poverty, sexism, and racism, Coleman defied all expectations, to become the first licensed female African-American pilot. The poems are fictionalized accounts based on the facts of Coleman's life.

Talkin' About Bessie opens with a brief historical background establishing Bessie Coleman's life in context of the history of aviation, and then jumps to a spread establishing a setting after a memorial for Coleman's death. The poems that follow are told as remembrances from family, friends, employers, flight instructors, newspaper reporters, and more. Each poem serves as a testament to the determination of Bessie Coleman to achieve great things despite the many setbacks she faced. Whether coming home from college because she could not longer afford it or learning a new language and moving overseas because no American flight school would accept an African-American woman, the poems of Coleman's life testify to her fighting spirit. The very last poem, told in Coleman's own voice, reveals the triumph she experienced through her flying.

The poems themselves are told in a very plain, conversational style free of lavish figurative language or rhyme. Instead they feel more like stories told in an interview, replicating natural speech. For example, Bessie's mother speaks of her early life saying:

I woke my Bessie before dawn on Sundays

to bathe and dress her for church,

bein' bound and determined that she,

like all my other children,

should first learn the wisdom of the Lawd,

and then, the wisdom of the world.

The language used for Bessie's mother recreates the dialect and speech patters of a Texas woman in the 1890s. 

Each poem is accompanied by a small sepia-toned water color image of the speaker, whether that individual happens to be a factual part of Bessie Coleman's life, or a compilation character like News Reporter #2. On the opposite page is a beautiful watercolor illustration of the scene depicted in the companion poem. The result is 21 spreads filled with the most significant memories and moments from Bessie Coleman's life.

The book's ending provides closure for Coleman's life with a short biography with details of her death and effect on the future of aviation. The author provides references for source notes about Bessie Coleman and the field of aviation.

Bessie Coleman's significance as a pioneer in aviation barrier-breaker in discrimination against women and African-Americans makes this book a valuable addition to any library for children in grades 2-5.

Example Poem

Bessie Coleman

I'll never forget that first time in France.
My knees wobbled when I climbed into the cockpit.
The mechanic cranked the propeller for me, and soon
a fine spray of engine oil misted my goggles,
baptizing me for take off.
I taxied down the runway, praying.

But flying at Checkerboard Field in Chicago was the best.
My family and friends were there in the stands,
cheering me on as I sliced through the air.
Oh Mama! I wish you could've been in the plane
to feel that magnificent machine shudder
with the sheer joy of leaving the ground.

I climbed over a thousand feet that day,
did a snap roll that sent the blood rushing
to my head so fast I thought my eyes would explode.
My seat belt felt like a magnet, pulling on my spine.
I can still feel my hand gripping the joystick,
how my muscles ached from struggling
to hold the plane center. But I didn't mind.

To rest, even for a moment,
weightless and silent, on a cushion of cloud,
near enough the sun to scoop up a handful of yellow
was a privilege more than worth the price of pain.

In the end, I count myself twice blessed:
first to have experienced the joy of flight;
and, second, to have shared it with others of my race.
I'll say this and no more:

        You have never lived
        until you have flown!

Activity
To share this poem with children, begin with a picture of triumph. The picture could be something like a child holding a large trophy or a climber at the top of a mountain. Discuss with children the obstacles the subject of the photograph might have encountered and the feelings they might have felt along the way. You may wish to share your own example of triumph or ask volunteers to share their own story of accomplishment. Then read them the poem from Talkin' About Bessie written from Coleman's perspective. Read the poem a second time, or ask several volunteers to read a stanza each from a projected or paper copy. During the second reading, direct children to think about the different emotions Coleman was feeling in each of those moments.

As an extension, ask students to think about their goals for the future. Do they want to fly like Bessie Coleman? Own their own company? Learn to water ski? Provide old magazines that can be cut up, glue, or even just markers, colored pencils, or crayons and allow students to make a dream board to give them visual reminders of what they want to do in the future and encourage them when they are having a hard day.

Science Poetry: Beast Feast

Florian, Douglas. 1994. Beast Feast. San Diego: Harcourt. ISBN: 0152951784.

Image courtesy Amazon.com

Review and Critical Analysis
Douglas Florian's Beast Feast contains 21 poems depicting all types of animals. Some animals such as the ants and the caterpillar are very familiar, while others, like the rhea and the kiwi, are more unusual. Each of the book's spreads pairs one of the poems with a whimsical, full-page watercolor painting of the animal.

The poems in Beast Feast rely heavily on playful rhyme and strong rhythm for their appeal. Florian uses traditional rhyme throughout the book. For example, in  "The Sloth" he rhymes "claws" and "pause," but he also plays with pronunciation and invents words to add a comical effect. In "The Walrus" he rhymes the word "sea" with his invented "walrusty," and in "The Boa" he plays with the word more, writing it as "moa and moa."

While all the poems play with rhyme and rhythm, they structures vary significantly. They vary in length from the two-lined "The Boa" that is a fairly simple rhyming couplet to the 20-lined "The Pigeon." Several of the poems are structured as quatrains, while my personal favorite, "The Mole" is written as a two-stanza limerick. The variety of poems and structures and lengths ensure there's a poem for everyone in this book.

Florian's language in Beast Feast is very accessible for children. The wording and descriptions are mostly straightforward, with an occasional simile such as referring to a lobster as being "Like an underwater/Mobster." He does include some scientific vocabulary such as "crustacean," "invertebrates," and "reptilian" that might need explanation for younger students who have not learned the vocabulary, yet. Their inclusion, however, is not so intrusive that students who might select this book from the shelf will be completely confused.

Douglas Florian's Beast Feast won the 1995 Lee Bennet Hopkins Poetry Award and is an excellent science resource for the library or elementary classroom.

Example Poem

The Lobster

See the hard-shelled
Leggy lobster
Like an underwater
Mobster
With two claws
To catch and crush
Worms and mollusks
Into mush
And antennae
Long and thick
Used for striking
Like a stick.
So be careful
On vacation
Not to step on
This crustacean.

Activity
"The Lobster" is an especially useful poem to use with a unit on ocean life. To introduce the poem, I would engage children in a conversation about their favorite underwater animal. Ask them to share what makes that animal special before reading about the legs, pinchers, and antennae of the lobster.

As an extension, have the children write a poem about their favorite ocean animal. Encourage them to try using rhyme or a simile like the poet does in "The Lobster." The poems can also be illustrated with traditional art supplies, or the poem and illustration can be designed using an iPad or computer.

Verse Novel: The Surrender Tree

Image courtesy http://www.margaritaengle.com

Engle, Margarita. 2008. The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom. New York: Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 9780805086744

Review and Critical Analysis
Margarita Engle’s The Surrender Tree tells the story of Cuba’s nearly fifty year struggle for freedom over the years of 1850-1899. This story is not told through a series of military victories and defeats. Rather, the story is revealed through the life of a freed Cuban slave named Rosa, her husband Jose, a reconcentration camp escapee named Silvia, and a slave hunter referred to as Lieutenant Death. The main character, Rosa, is based on Rosario Castellanos Castellanos, a historical Cuban figure known for her abilities as a healer. Through over 130 short poems, we see Engle’s depiction of Rosa grow from a young girl into a well-known nurse who uses the natural resources around her to heal anyone brought to her, escaped slave, soldier, or slave hunter. Rosa’s ability as a healer makes her a target for slave hunters, including a man known only as Lieutenant Death, even though she has healed him on two separate occasions.

Engle’s poems are written in language that a middle or high school student could access easily. Through the poems, the narrators reveal the richness of the forest around them with descriptions of “the music/of crickets, tree frogs, owls,/and the whir of wings/ as night birds fly” (7). These images of the forest and caves that become home for Rosa, Jose, and Silvia portray the connection between the characters, the forest, and their dreams for peace. Rosa explains, “I dream that I am able to sell all these flowers/because it is peacetime/and blossoms are treasured/for beauty and fragrance,/not potions, not cures. . . .” (153). Unfortunately for Rosa, Jose, and all the other Cubans, the end of the war in 1899 did not bring the freedom they expected, as the U.S. seized control of Cuba.

This verse novel includes several aids for readers. The table of contents divides the poems into five sections by date to place the poems into historical context. Additionally, the poems are followed by author’s notes, historical notes, a chronology, and selected references to help readers pick out the historical facts from Engle’s imagining of what Rosa’s life was like. The Surrender Tree offers readers an unusual perspective on war--that of the hunted and conquered.

Example Poem 
Rosa

Farms and mansions
are burning!

Flames turn to smoke--
the smoke leaps, then fades
and vanishes . . .
making the world seem invisible.

I am one of the few
free women blessed
with healing skills.

Should I fight with weapons,
or flowers and leaves?

Each choice leads to another--
I stand at a crossroads in my mind,
deciding to serve as a nurse,
armed with fragrant herbs,
fighting a wilderness battle, my own private war
against death. (27)

Activity
Engage students in a brief discussion of the different types of fighting (physical altercations, yelling matches, flame wars on social media, etc.). Find out what they know about nonviolent protest and key nonviolent figures like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. As you read the poem out loud, ask the students to listen for the choice facing Rosa and how she chooses to fight.

As an extension, students can search for poems or song lyrics that explore the concept of nonviolent protest. Readers can practice their piece to perform for their classmates.

New Poetry Book: Loving vs. Virginia

Image courtesy http://talesforallages.com/

Powell, Patricia Hruby. 2017. Loving vs. Virginia: A Documentary Novel of the Landmark Civil Rights Case. Artwork by Shadra Strickland. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. ISBN 9781452125909

Review and Critical Analysis
Loving vs. Virginia tells the story of Richard and Mildred Loving, a couple whose struggle to live as husband and wife in their home state became a legal battle that would eventually change marriage laws across the United States. The verse novel begins in the fall of 1952 when Richard first begins to take an interest in Mildred (Millie) and then traces their story as they fall in love, marry, start a family, and fight for marriage equality. It closes shortly after their Supreme Court victory in 1967, nine years after their wedding.

Powell tells the Lovings’ story through nearly seventy free verse poems. She alternates between the voice of Mildred and the voice of Richard to capture the unique perspective of each of them. Rather that give the poems distinct titles, Powell provides the speaker and, as time passes, a month and year to place the scene in history. The one exception to this pattern is the poem about their wedding in June of 1958. To symbolize the joining of the two lives, the poem is written as a poem for two voices in which the voices sometimes alternate, sometimes speak in unison, and sometimes speak different words simultaneously. The combination gives readers a sense of both the nervousness of the young couple as well as the love they share.

The poems themselves use very sparse language. Rather than using elaborate figurative language or strong rhyme, Powell uses conversational language that almost reads like prose to build the relationship between Richard and Millie. The power of these poems lies in Powell’s ability to capture the thoughts and emotions of the two speakers through her crystal clear depictions of their interactions. For example, the October 1955 poem narrated by Richard takes place at the end of their first group date. As she’s getting out of his car, Millie very subtly acknowledges that she is interested in Richard. Powell reveals Richard’s response in the last stanza as he narrates, “I drove off, hitting the steering wheel/of my good ole green DeSoto/feeling just fine.” Richard doesn’t say anything out loud, but his reaction clearly indicates his joy at knowing Mille returns his affection. This plain-style writing serves the storyline well, as key events like the Lovings’ first arrest have their own power that doesn’t need extravagant language. When they are awakened by the Sheriff in their own bed only five weeks after their wedding, Mildred’s description of leaving the house is striking in its simplicity: “Mama watches me go off/with the white men/Get in their car./Go to jail.” The stark, straightforward language captures the rawness of such climactic moments.

Loving vs. Virginia includes several features that place the events of the Lovings’ lives in historical context. The opening includes a timeline beginning with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1865 through 1952, when the book begins. The timeline is accompanied by Langston Hughes’s “Long View: Negro,” which first calls up the idea that events that loom large in history had very real, personal effects on individuals. This ideas is echoed in supplementary information chronologically aligned with the lives of Richard and Mildred Loving, allowing the reader a broader look at society while they examine the Lovings’ story up close. Interspersed among the poems, readers will find primary documents like time period photographs, excerpts from news articles, quotes from famous public figures. Even more information such as a detailed timeline and bibliography is available at the end of the book to document the factual information included in the poems.

Loving vs. Virginia is recommended for children in grade eight or higher. While all content is handled quite gracefully, the events depicted have a sensitive nature that may not be appropriate for younger children. The Loving story is still so very relevant in modern society that this book would make an excellent addition to a high school library or to a language arts or social studies classroom as part of a civil rights study.

Example Poem

Richard
October 1955

Millie was the last one out of the car.
I said,
          I’ll stop by next week?
But I said it like a question, ‘cause she don’t like to be told.
She nodded.

I drove off, hitting the steering wheel
of my good ole green DeSoto
feeling just fine.

Activity
Most young adults will need background information on the story of Richard and Mildred Loving. Show students the trailer for the 2016 (3:01) movie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPAbJzL98Y0 or for the HBO documentary (0:47) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h62ZBiHNJoM to provide background on the Lovings.

Then explain to students that while we see Richard and Mildred (Millie) Loving as strong, powerful people who literally changed marriage laws in our country, they didn’t set out to make such an impact. They started out--just like most couples do--with a crush, a budding romance, puppy love--whatever you want to call it.

Explain to students that this poem reveals a brief moment after Richard and Millie’s first group date. Richard has had a crush on Mildred for a while, but up to this point, she has not given much indication about how she feels. Read the poem once or twice to familiarize students with the poem. Then read the poem again, asking the students to note all the small ways Richard and Millie indicate their true feelings.

As an extension, students could research other people from historic court cases like Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, KS, etc. Students can share their findings through poetry. They might consider finding background information on the plaintiffs and writing a poem that depicts what they imagine the plaintiff’s average day was like or how the plaintiff felt in crucial moments. Students might also want to find one reliable, valuable source to use as a basis for a found poem.

Sources

HBODocs. "HBO Documentary Films: The Loving Story - Trailer (HBODocs)." YouTube. 0:47. January 11, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h62ZBiHNJoM

Zero Media. "Loving Official Trailer #1(2016) Joel Edgerton, Ruth Negga Drama Movie HD." YouTube, 3:01. July 12, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPAbJzL98Y0