Biographical Poetry: How I Discovered Poetry

How I Discovered Poetry
By Marilyn Nelson
Illustrations by Hadley Hooper

Nelson, Marilyn, and Hadley Hooper. How I Discovered Poetry. New York, NY: Dial Books, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 2014. 9780803733046

Plot Summary

Take a peek at the early life of Marilyn Nelson, a National Book Award finalist and Newbery Honor winner. Written from her perspective and spanning from age four to fourteen, Nelson shares fifty intimate poems about growing up in a military family during the Civil Rights Movement, the "Red Scare", the atom bomb, and the beginning of the feminist movement.

Analysis

Though this is not considered a true memoir that is based on her memories, this poetry book condensed a tumultuous time of Marilyn Nelson's life into fifty poems that are quick to read and can be enjoyed by children from age twelve and older. The poems are unrhymed sonnets with fourteen lines and roughly ten syllables per line. She has included difficult topics, such as racism, the "Red Scare", and the constant fear of atomic destruction, but the way that she presents these topics makes them less overwhelming and more personal. Throughout this book, the poems become more complex as Nelson's understanding of the world around her grows. The poems start by feeling very scattered and fast, just as a child's train of thought zips from thought to thought. In her poem Bomb Drill, she writes, "We ducked and covered underneath our desks,/ hiding from drajen bombs in school today./ Maybe drajens would turn into butter/ if they ran really fast around a tree." She was able to present a very scary topic in a softer way, through the eyes of a child who does not fully understand it. As she grows older, Nelson adds more to each poem giving them more depth and emotion.

Younger readers may have trouble understanding all of the topics presented in these fifty poems, but older readers would be familiar with Nelson's experiences. There will be readers who have experienced some of the same things, and this should be taken into account when reading this book in a group. Some readers will be familiar with her military lifestyle, having to move across the country frequently as she detailed in the settings of the poem, which have been indicated underneath each title. Choosing to include the location and year help readers build a timeline of her life from age four to fourteen and visualize how chaotic and sporadic it was at times for her.

Excerpt

After the stop bath and fixer, we hang

with clothespins on a line over the tub,

living colors reduced to black-and-white,

a lived moment captured in memory

Mama will put in the photo album.

Connections

After choosing several of Nelson's poems to read aloud, talk about how she used her own memories and general experiences in life to write them. Encourage children to think about an event in their lives that was either positive or negative and have them write a poem about it. Have them try to write an unrhymed sonnet like Nelson has done in this book and see if it changes how the poem sounds or feels.

Reviews

One reviewer for Publishers Weekly wrote, "Nelson’s 50 poems, which are complemented by muted screen print-like illustrations, are composed of raw reflections on formative events, including her development as a reader and writer . . . An intimate perspective on a tumultuous era and an homage to the power of language."

“How I Discovered Poetry.” 2014. Publishers Weekly, November, 110. https://search-ebscohost-com.ezp.twu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=brd&AN=99627038&site=ehost-live.

Laura Younkin wrote for the Library Media Connection saying, "The problem will be getting it into students' hands and having them understand some of the subtle references to the times. It's easier to imagine this as a class read-aloud rather than an individual choice. The topics could lead to rich discussions about American life in the 1950s."

Younkin, Laura. 2014. “How I Discovered Poetry.” Library Media Connection 33 (2): 19. https://search-ebscohost-com.ezp.twu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=brd&AN=98590718&site=ehost-live.