Weatherford, Carole Boston. Remember the Bridge: Poems of A People. New York. Philomel Books.
2002.
ISBN: 978-0-399-23726-3
Remember
the Bridge: Poems of A People is a book of poetry
which details the trials and celebrations of the African American people during
their time of slavery and oppression. All the poems in the book are written by
Carole Boston Weatherford whose poems have also appeared in other anthologies
and children’s books.
For anyone who would like to know exactly what the
African American people went through and the type of suffering they endured,
this book of poems will take you on that journey. The language which
Weatherford uses is dark at times and creates vivid images in the reader’s
mind.
“The woman’s cries do not stall the sale of
her son. Tears bead up on her cheeks.
Warm milk streams down her bare chest.
Arms empty as her heart.”
These
words describing how children were basically ripped from the arms of their
mothers will evoke strong emotions as will the poems about the slave beatings
with the cat - o’- nine tails and the conditions on a slave ship. One can
almost hear the strike of the whip and smell the stench of the ship. While some
of the poems obviously rhyme, others are a little more subtle in their
patterns. The photographs and engravings which accompany the poems in the book
serve to enhance the impact of the poems on the emotions of the reader.
Weatherford
has also included in her book, poems which celebrate the lives of noted African
Americans today. Men such as Martin Luther King and William Carney and women
such as Harriet Tubman, Marian Anderson and Rosa Parks all have a place in this
book. The book does not seem to have a chronological format and does not have a
table of contents but their absence does not seem to diminish the impact this book will
have on the reader.
SPOTLIGHT
POEM
The Contralto (For Marian Anderson)
Banned from
playing the concert hall,
she sang
outdoors on a grassy mall.
Statues watched
as she warmed the crowd,
filling the wind
with a sound so proud,
spirituals,
arias, from her soul,
rushing, rising
as rivers roll.
Praising the
Lord and His mighty hands,
her voice, a
bell, pealed across the land.
She told
America, “I shall sing.
Listen,
children, hear freedom ring!”
I
would share this poem about Marian Anderson and tell the students about how she
became a key figure for the struggles of black musicians and other artists in
the struggle to overcome racial prejudices in the United States. As a follow up
activity, I would have students choose another figure from the book and have
them conduct research into how the person they chose impacted the lives of the
African American people. They would present their findings to the rest of the
class by using a web 2.0 tool of their choice. This would be done during Black
History Month or at a time when the Civil Rights Movement was being studied.
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