Poetry Friday: DeShawn Days

At Author Amok, we've spent most of October with poet and children's author Tony Medina.

Two of the books I featured are picture books -- verse biographies of two figures who are heroes to many: Langston Hughes (my post about Love to Langston is here) and Bob Marley (and the post about I and I Bob Marley is here).

Medina's latest book of poems for young people, out any day now, is THE PRESIDENT LOOKS LIKE ME, a kids' view of another man for this history books, President Obama.

Published by Just Us Books.

Tony will be here next week for an interview about the new book. Meanwhile...

I'd like to share a Medina book that is a huge favorite with kids. From time to time, Tony posts on Facebook about his Skype visits with school-children, usually boys, who *love* DESHAWN DAYS. They ask Tony questions about DeShawn as if he were a real person, because the character does feel real.

Illustrated by R. Gregory Christie.

DeShawn isn't a famous poet or musician. He's a ten year old kid growing up in the projects. Through loosely styled poems of place, odes and portraits, DeShawn shows the reader who he is, who he loves, and what his life is like. (A classroom guide is here -- thanks Lee & Low Books!)

(Side note: this book was designed by my friend, author/illustrator Christy Hale of THE EAST WEST HOUSE.)

There are so many poems in this book that I loved, and that have strong kid-appeal. With Tony's permission, I am sharing this one. I hope it gives you a taste of DeShawn's voice.

DeShawn raps with his cousin, Tiffany.

I Love Rap
by Tony Medina
from DESHAWN DAYS

I love rap
not just 'cause of the beats
that make you move your feet
                       but the words
'cause they talk about reality
'cause they talk about me
and my block

I love rap and I love rhyming
and sometimes I be timing
Tiffany when she's on the mike
and I'm the deejay wavin' my hands
in the air scratchin' make-believe records

But I'm not lesser 'cause I use
the top of my mother's dresser
                                        'cause

I love rap
and I love rhyming
in front of the mirror
making believe I'm in a video
          wearing a baseball cap
          and my uncle's shades
and when I let my hair grow out
I'll have me some braids
and when I get older and bolder
I'll learn how to break dance
          with my legs in the air
          kicking like propellers
standing on my hands
bustin' out rhymes
with Tiff and the fellas

Poem posted with permission of Tony Medina. All rights reserved. Thanks, Tony. 

Kids won't be surprised -- since DeShawn feels so real -- that the character has a lot in common with Tony Medina.

Tony visits with elementary schoolers.

Tony writes in an afterword, "I come from a similar world as DeShawn. I was a skinny brown boy from the projects with asthma, an active imagination, and a grandmother who was there for me... Every other day I wanted to be something different: a construction worker, a sailor, a movie star, a comedian, a lawyer, you name it."

Tony was turned on to reading and writing by Daniel Keyes' book Flowers for Algernon. He says, "A writer is a great thing to be because you get to paint pictures, tell stories, create worlds, and express your feeling, all with words."

Friends -- if you have not participated in the "Next Big Thing Blog Hop" yet and are interested, please let me know. My "Next Big Thing" post is here. Send me an email if you'd like to answer the questions and be one of my linkees.

Get out there and find all of the pictures, stories, worlds and emotions poets are sharing today. (I'm sure there will be plenty of costumes, frights and Halloween candy too.) It's Poetry Friday! Our host is Linda B. at Teacher Dance.

Candy Corn Popcorn Balls from myrecipes.com

I will be driving -- ahead of the storm, I hope -- to the Poconos today, for a retreat with poet Michael Glaser. But I hope to sample lots of poetry goodies before I leave and when I return.

Poetry Friday: Love to Langston

It's just over one month until the 2012 presidential election. Among the many children's books related to the presidency and the election is poet Tony Medina's The President Looks Like Me. It will be out from Just Us Books in time for the election.

 

Tony Medina reading at the Bethesda, MD Writers Center.

Dr. Medina, who teaches at Washington DC's Howard University, is best known as an award-winning poet for adults. However, he --  like poet Lucille Clifton, who I blogged about last week -- is also a prolific children's author.

As we count down to the election, I am going to feature several of Tony's children's books. On November 2, the Friday before election day, the good Doctor will stop by for an interview about The President Looks Like Me.

Let's start with Love to Langston (Lee & Low Books, Inc., 2002), Tony's wonderful verse biography of poet Langston Hughes.

The book opens with "Little Boy Blues." Young Langston is bored at home with a snoozing grandmother, unable to play outside because the "white kids chase me/ 'cause of my brown brown skin." 

But it is that same grandmother who tells Langston stories about Africa, slavery, the Underground Railroad and John Brown. We watch the poet navigate racism at school, his troubled relationship with his father, and a trip to Africa. He finds solace in libraries, "beautiful words/ keeping me company/ taking my loneliness/ and blues/ away."

My favorite poem in this biography, which extends through Hughes' adult life, is "Harlem Is the Capital of My World."

I read this poem to a group of fifth graders when we were writing odes together. They were caught up in the music of Tony's poem. A poem that sounds like they sound, that talks the way they talk! Whether or not these kids had been to Harlem, they understood what it meant to love a place that's "black and beautiful and bruised."

Harlem Is the Capital of My World
by Tony Medina

Harlem is the capital of my world
black and beautiful and bruised
          like me

Harlem has soul -- it's where black people
care about black people and everybody's
child belongs to the community

Where we be stylin' and profilin'
with concrete streets stretched out
under our feet and boulevards broad
and spread like a red carpet for royalty

The King of Swing
The Duke of Ellington
The Empress of the Blues

Harlem is a bouquet of black roses
all packed together and protected
by blackness and pride

Harlem is where I reside
where I work and stride
my dark community
from the East River to
St. Nicholas Avenue with
nightclubs and cabarets
spilling over with jazz
and bluesy urban spirituals
(it's not miracle we survive!)

Why I fell in love with Harlem
before I ever got here!

Yeah, Harlem is where I be --
where I could be
                            Me

Harlem is the capital of my world

Poem posted with permission of Tony Medina. All rights reserved. Thanks, Tony.

Next week, we'll look at another verse biography by Tony Medina, I and I Bob Marley. 

Enjoy this week's Poetry Friday posts. You'll find them at the other Laura S's blog, Writing the World for Kids. Thanks, Laura!