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!