Book Review: A WREATH FOR EMMETT TILL
*Note: this blog was created for a class at TWU
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Nelson, Marilyn. 2005. A WREATH FOR EMMETT TILL. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.
2. PLOT SUMMARY:
Marilyn Nelson's book tells the story of Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old boy who was murdered in 1955 because of his race, in the form of a heroic crown of fifteen interlinked sonnets, with each sonnet beginning with the last line of the preceding sonnet.
3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS:
Many Americans know the story of Emmett Till's brutal murder and the subsequent trial in which the white men accused of the murder were found not guilty through documentaries and history books on the civil rights movement, but Emmett's story has never been told in such a unique, personal, and moving way as in A WREATH FOR EMMETT TILL.
Beautifully illustrated by Philippe Lardy in a symbolic, collage-like style, A WREATH FOR EMMETT TILL begins with a note from the author explaining how she came to write a book about this horrific incident that she remembered happening when she was nine. The complex poetic form was, for her, a protection "from the intense pain of the subject matter, and a way to allow the Muse to determine what the poem would say."
Nelson's first sonnet considers what flowers would be chosen for Emmett's wreath, drawing from the language of flowers, a theme she twines, like a wreath, throughout the poems. The flowers are accompanied by the underlying structural theme of the tree, at times rotten to the core, at times the keeper of history (through its rings), and at times the bearer of death in lynching. Echoing these central themes, the illustrations incorporate elliptic shapes to recall the wreath and, as the artist explains in the note at the end of the book, "the 'cosmic egg,' the mythological origin of the universe."
There are a lot of layers here for the reader. For more advanced readers, vocabulary such as "dendrochronology," "populace," and "consciencelessness" would be an enticing challenge. In addition, each of the fifteen sonnets is full of allusions, which the author explains in a commentary at the back. Yet even without fully understanding the allusions, the poems' emotionally charged words and imagery combine with the content to create a powerful whole that would capture the interest of even reluctant readers. In the sonnet describing Emmett's mother's preparations for his train trip, the language is simple and heart wrenching:
and comic books. She'd given him a note
for the conductor, waved to his chubby face,
wondered if he'd remember to brush his hair.
Her only child. A body left to bloat.
The picture accompanying it on the next page is equally haunting, showing Emmett, peering through an oval, as if through the train window, surrounded by thorns, chains, and the five crows, waiting to lynch him. The boy's expression is one of curiosity and anticipation for the adventures he hopes to have on this trip to visit his aunt and uncle. He cannot see and could not imagine the horrors awaiting him outside the train.
Because of the multiple layers, A WREATH FOR EMMETT TILL has something for everyone: the poetry lover, the voracious reader, the reluctant reader, the visual learner, the child, and the adult. It is a beautiful and respectful homage the boy whose death has become a symbol of the ignorance and hatred the world needs to eradicate from our hearts.
4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S)
Booklist (starred review): "When matched with Lardy's gripping, spare, symbolic paintings of tree trunks, blood-red roots, and wreaths of thorns, these poems are a powerful achievement that teens and adults will want to discuss together."
School Library Journal: "This memorial to the lynched teen is in the Homeric tradition of poet-as-historian. . . . This chosen formality brings distance and reflection to readers, but also calls attention to the horrifically ugly events."
5. CONNECTIONS
* Using an Elmo or other document camera, this book would be a powerful read-aloud in the social studies or language arts classroom. The teacher could show the illustrations while reading the text. A WREATH FOR EMMETT TILL would be an excellent mentor text for a poetry unit that went beyond the usual haikus, acrostic poems, biopoems, and diamantes we see in many middle and high school classrooms. I think in our district, students write some form of biopoem every year between 7th and 10th grade. Enough! It might help students not only write poetry which is deeper and more symbolic, but also technically more complex. While it would be difficult to write a heroic crown of sonnets, students could choose an element to explore such as iambic pentameter, the sonnet rhyme scheme, or the idea of writing a cycle of poems in which the last line of the preceding poem became the first line of the next poem. For the visual learners, the collage-like illustration techniques would also be an element to explore in illustrating poems.
*Note: this blog was created for a class at TWU
1. BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Nelson, Marilyn. 2005. A WREATH FOR EMMETT TILL. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.
2. PLOT SUMMARY:
Marilyn Nelson's book tells the story of Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old boy who was murdered in 1955 because of his race, in the form of a heroic crown of fifteen interlinked sonnets, with each sonnet beginning with the last line of the preceding sonnet.
3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS:
Many Americans know the story of Emmett Till's brutal murder and the subsequent trial in which the white men accused of the murder were found not guilty through documentaries and history books on the civil rights movement, but Emmett's story has never been told in such a unique, personal, and moving way as in A WREATH FOR EMMETT TILL.
Beautifully illustrated by Philippe Lardy in a symbolic, collage-like style, A WREATH FOR EMMETT TILL begins with a note from the author explaining how she came to write a book about this horrific incident that she remembered happening when she was nine. The complex poetic form was, for her, a protection "from the intense pain of the subject matter, and a way to allow the Muse to determine what the poem would say."
Nelson's first sonnet considers what flowers would be chosen for Emmett's wreath, drawing from the language of flowers, a theme she twines, like a wreath, throughout the poems. The flowers are accompanied by the underlying structural theme of the tree, at times rotten to the core, at times the keeper of history (through its rings), and at times the bearer of death in lynching. Echoing these central themes, the illustrations incorporate elliptic shapes to recall the wreath and, as the artist explains in the note at the end of the book, "the 'cosmic egg,' the mythological origin of the universe."
There are a lot of layers here for the reader. For more advanced readers, vocabulary such as "dendrochronology," "populace," and "consciencelessness" would be an enticing challenge. In addition, each of the fifteen sonnets is full of allusions, which the author explains in a commentary at the back. Yet even without fully understanding the allusions, the poems' emotionally charged words and imagery combine with the content to create a powerful whole that would capture the interest of even reluctant readers. In the sonnet describing Emmett's mother's preparations for his train trip, the language is simple and heart wrenching:
and comic books. She'd given him a note
for the conductor, waved to his chubby face,
wondered if he'd remember to brush his hair.
Her only child. A body left to bloat.
The picture accompanying it on the next page is equally haunting, showing Emmett, peering through an oval, as if through the train window, surrounded by thorns, chains, and the five crows, waiting to lynch him. The boy's expression is one of curiosity and anticipation for the adventures he hopes to have on this trip to visit his aunt and uncle. He cannot see and could not imagine the horrors awaiting him outside the train.
Because of the multiple layers, A WREATH FOR EMMETT TILL has something for everyone: the poetry lover, the voracious reader, the reluctant reader, the visual learner, the child, and the adult. It is a beautiful and respectful homage the boy whose death has become a symbol of the ignorance and hatred the world needs to eradicate from our hearts.
4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S)
Booklist (starred review): "When matched with Lardy's gripping, spare, symbolic paintings of tree trunks, blood-red roots, and wreaths of thorns, these poems are a powerful achievement that teens and adults will want to discuss together."
School Library Journal: "This memorial to the lynched teen is in the Homeric tradition of poet-as-historian. . . . This chosen formality brings distance and reflection to readers, but also calls attention to the horrifically ugly events."
5. CONNECTIONS
* Using an Elmo or other document camera, this book would be a powerful read-aloud in the social studies or language arts classroom. The teacher could show the illustrations while reading the text. A WREATH FOR EMMETT TILL would be an excellent mentor text for a poetry unit that went beyond the usual haikus, acrostic poems, biopoems, and diamantes we see in many middle and high school classrooms. I think in our district, students write some form of biopoem every year between 7th and 10th grade. Enough! It might help students not only write poetry which is deeper and more symbolic, but also technically more complex. While it would be difficult to write a heroic crown of sonnets, students could choose an element to explore such as iambic pentameter, the sonnet rhyme scheme, or the idea of writing a cycle of poems in which the last line of the preceding poem became the first line of the next poem. For the visual learners, the collage-like illustration techniques would also be an element to explore in illustrating poems.
No comments:
Post a Comment