MPR’s Mary Stucky reports on local poetry book "The Palm of My Heart", which collects vivid poetry by African American children who live in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Stuckey talks with teacher/editor Davida Adedjouma and the student poets.
MPR’s Mary Stucky reports on local poetry book "The Palm of My Heart", which collects vivid poetry by African American children who live in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Stuckey talks with teacher/editor Davida Adedjouma and the student poets.
SPEAKER: There's a thrill to seeing words in print.
SPEAKER: It's been a dream come true for me because this has always been one of my dreams, to have one of my poems, one of my writing works be published ever since I was little. Now it's in a book that's being sold in real bookstores all around the country. I'm ecstatic.
SPEAKER: Lauren Chrisler is 13 years old. Her poem is the last one in The Palm of My Heart. It's illustrated with a double-page spread by artist Gregory Christy.
Two Black children, the girl faces the reader. The boy gazes into a sky swirling with orange and yellow, stars dancing across the page.
SPEAKER: Black spirit turns and churns.
It is energetic and eternal.
SPEAKER: Poet and teacher Davida Adejima worked with these children in after school programs in Minneapolis and St. Paul. She has strong feelings about the way in which many teachers destroy creativity in children.
SPEAKER: You learn how not to be creative. It's not a matter of you learn how to be creative. That's there. But what happens is that's taken out of you from the minute they tell you to color inside the lines. That's where it starts. The thing is-- I think what I want to give back is what some schools take away, which is the ability to think.
SPEAKER: Sitting around a table with three girls, Adejima helps them work their magic.
SPEAKER: Give me 25 words that come to mind when you think of the word woman. And the trick to it is don't think and try and plot it out. Just let it flow off the top of your head, OK? You got that?
Now, this is how you do it. Lauren will start, and all she's going to do is give her first word. You're going to give your first word. You're going to give your first word. And you're just going to keep going around in a circle until you used up all the words, OK? OK.
SPEAKER: Lady.
SPEAKER: Mother.
SPEAKER: Love.
SPEAKER: Friend.
SPEAKER: Sister.
SPEAKER: Heart.
SPEAKER: You can't plan that. When you hear words that came out next to each other, mother, mother or mother, mother, lover or nails, mean, teachers understand you can't plot that out.
That's why you go in a circle because then they start thinking, oh, I wouldn't have made that connection with that connection. And then we just take off from there.
SPEAKER: The subtitle of the book is Poetry by African-American Children. But Lauren's mother, Pat Chrisler, thinks this poetry is universal.
SPEAKER: All the poems in there, I just think they were just great because it had a meaning. Anyone could enjoy this book if they took out Black. It was for any child because it dealt with how they felt about themselves. Now, you can put any color where Black is and come up with any child.
SPEAKER: My favorite poem is
Black is pretty.
Pretty is cute,
And I'm cute when I smile.
SPEAKER: Black imagination, letters printed in a book
Sitting there, waiting to be read
SPEAKER: Black ancestors died for my freedom
My great Uncle Jimmy risked his life to help
Black people, vote
My great great grandmother voted for the first time
When she was 80 years old.
Black is boldness.
SPEAKER: I always tell them, quit looking outside of your own experience trying to right somebody else's experience. Deal with what you know right now.
SPEAKER: Davida Adejima.
SPEAKER: Like with Brandon's, his grandmother voted for the first time when she was 80. Why would you go looking for somebody else's experience when you have that experience in your own life?
SPEAKER: Davida Adejima's teaching technique is obvious in the story she tells about the title poem, The Palm of My Heart. Adejima says the child writer meant to say the palm of my hand, but that lucky mistake set poetry in motion.
SPEAKER: Black is dark.
Dark is lovely.
Lovely is the palm of my heart,
And my heartbeats are filled with joy.
SPEAKER: And I read that. When she wrote it and just sat there-- sometimes there's nothing you can say.
SPEAKER: The Palm of My Heart, edited by Davida Adejima, is published by Lee & Low and full of the poetry of African-American children living in Minneapolis and St. Paul. I'm Mary Stuckey.
Digitization made possible by the National Historical Publications & Records Commission.
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