Jacqueline Woodson is a native first of Columbus Ohio, then of Greenville, South Carolina, and finally, Brooklyn, New York.  Her nomadic childhood during the tumultuous 1960s and 70s inspired this incredible memoir in verse, which is surely the only autobiography I’ve ever read in poetry.  Layered with tales of tragedy, uprooting, defeat, dreams, and hope, Woodson conjures a nostalgia for her unique upbringing with ease.  She explores themes of family, race, poverty, education, and our life’s callings in this beautiful text.

I can’t wait to share Brown Girl Dreaming with my students. There are so many amazing poems that make up the text as a whole–from the spot-on “stevie and me” (If someone had taken/ that book out of my hand/ said, You’re too old for this/ maybe/ I’d never have believed/ that someone who looked like me/ could be in the pages of the book/ that someone who looked like me/ had a story) to the haunting “what’s left behind” (Sometimes, I don’t know the words for things,/ how to write down the feeling of knowing/ that every dying person leaves something behind.).  But the one we’ll imitate for craft is “what i believe,” which brilliantly combines repetition, deliberate contrast, and an elegant articulation of Woodson’s beliefs.  I hope it will lead my students toward a “This I Believe” essay, and toward wanting to read this book in full.

From Brown Girl Dreaming, p. 317-318

Tagged: Craft Study, Poetry