Saturday, April 5, 2014

SOCIAL STUDIES POETRY




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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