You’re probably aware of some of the common stereotypes about poets: They’re college professors who wear tweed jackets with leather patches on the elbows, or maybe they’re little old ladies who write ditsy poems about birds and butterflies. They don’t have real jobs. They’re introverts with weak biceps. This raises the question: If that’s what a poet is, then why do totalitarian governments persist in imprisoning, torturing, and murdering them?
It’s true that poets in the United States aren’t persecuted for publishing poetry … yet. In totalitarian countries, however, the ruling parties are wise to the power of poetry to foment revolution, and they suppress that power through any means necessary. For example, in 2022, two Russian poets were sentenced to many years in prison for writing poems that “incited hatred” against Russian soldiers and for making “appeals against state security.” According to the BBC, one of the men was reportedly beaten and tortured by Russian police after his arrest.
In 2021, the New York Times reported that more than 30 poets had been imprisoned in Myanmar (also known as Burma) following a military coup. At least four poets have died as a result of their protests against the military. The Burmese poet U Yee Mon was quoted as saying, “Anti-authoritarian sentiments have always been in the flesh and blood of poets. The people with weapons are afraid of pen-wielding hands.”
In 1952, Joseph Stalin ordered the execution of thirteen Jewish intellectuals who were accused of espionage and treason. Many were poets whose efforts to preserve Yiddish culture threatened Stalin’s plans for the Soviet Union. Their execution became known as the “Night of the Murdered Poets.”
Why do dictators fear poets? I think it’s because poetry can speak directly to people’s hearts in a way that political propaganda can’t. It can call forth their courage and determination to resist oppression.
Children in elementary school are typically introduced to the biographies of the leaders in American history, such as George Washington and John F. Kennedy, who led the nation during wars or even fought on the frontlines. I think it’s just as important for them to know the history of the poets who have spoken to the hearts of the American people. In their own ways, they have led the country toward peace and justice. The picture book biographies described below are a good place to start.
Poet: The Remarkable Story of George Moses Horton
By Don Tate
In his author’s note to Poet, author-illustrator Don Tate writes that at one point he had decided that he would not work on stories about slavery. He rationalized that it was because he wanted to work on contemporary stories, but he admits that it was in fact because he was ashamed of the topic. Fortunately, for readers young and old, he had a change of heart. The result was Poet: The Remarkable Story of George Moses Horton.
Don Tate tells the story in a simple style that makes George Horton’s accomplishments seem even more remarkable by contrast. Horton was born into a slave family on a farm in Chatham County, North Carolina. Learning to read in school wasn’t an option for him, but he learned the alphabet by eavesdropping on white children who were studying together. Using a hymnal that his mother owned and a battered spelling book, he gradually taught himself to read. He loved reading poetry best, and he began composing poems in his head as he worked in the fields.
George Horton got his start as a paid poet by writing love poems for students at the University of North Carolina, where he’d been sent to sell fruits and vegetables for his master. Later, his poems — including poems that criticized slavery — were published in newspapers. He even published a book, hoping to buy his freedom with the proceeds, but his master refused to part with his valuable slave.
The Emancipation Proclamation finally freed Horton in 1863, when he was 66 years old, but as Don Tate writes, “Words had loosened the chains of bondage long before his last day as a slave.”
Tate used straightforward text to describe the hardships and humiliations George Horton experienced as a slave. He lets his illustrations show the emotional toll it took, such as the grief on his family’s faces when Horton is given away to his master’s son. Later, when Horton’s master refuses to let Horton pay for his freedom, Horton puts his head down on a desk in obvious despair.
Throughout the story, the words of Horton’s poetry are incorporated in to the illustrations. For example, as he plows his master’s field while the Civil War rages on, these lines are shown
Am I sadly cast aside,
On misfortune’s rugged tide?
Will the world my pains deride
Forever?
Don Tate provides a full-page list of books and websites he used in writing the book, including George Moses Horton’s own autobiography. His author’s note gives more information about Horton’s life and puts it into historical context.
You can learn more about Don Tate here.
A Song for Gwendolyn Brooks
By Alice Faye Duncan
Illustrated by Xia Gordon
It would be difficult under any circumstances to write a picture book biography of Gwendolyn Brooks, a gifted and prolific writer who became the first black writer to win a Pulitzer Prize and also became a poet laureate to the Library of Congress, because she accomplished so much in her lifetime. To write her biography in verse is downright audacious, but Alice Faye Duncan does just that in A Song for Gwendolyn Brooks — and she nails it!
Duncan tells Brooks’ story in chronological order, with major periods delineated by Roman numerals. Each begins with the line “Sing a song for Gwendolyn Brooks.”
The first segment of the story begins when Brooks is eight years old. She lives in Chicago, where “gray bursts of smoke hide the yellow sun.” She is unsure if a flower can grow without sunlight. Brooks is a bit of a loner among her classmates, but she already has the watchful eye of a poet.
Brooks has the full support of both her parents as she begins writing poems, but she is a hard critic for herself, sometimes burying her work under a snowball bush in the backyard.
When a teacher accuses Gwendolyn of plagiarism, her mother marches to the school with Gwendolyn and defends her. She insists that the teacher have Gwendolyn write a poem on the spot, which Gwendolyn does with ease.
Simply describing all of Gwendolyn Brooks’s many successes could make it seem as if it all came easy to her. Duncan makes it clear that her success was as much from hard work as from simply talent. This is how she describes the:
She learns to labor for the love of words.
Draft one is shoddy.
Draft two is a thud.
Gwen toils to write one poem each day.
She deletes, rewrites, and starts again.
The simplest verse is a taxing struggle.
Draft three is better.
Draft four is best.
Her couplets waltz with wonderment.
Gwen’s confidence is a bud in spring.
Revised … revisions make poetry RING!
Duncan brings the story full circle, going back to Gwendolyn’s uncertainly about a flower growing without light. She writes:
She found her light.
And—
A furious flower
GREW!
A standout feature of the illustrations for A Song for Gwendolyn Brooks is the choice of color palette. They are rendered in shades of plum, brown, and mauve, with highlights of gold and pink. The effect is understated yet powerful.
An extra treat is that four of Brook’s own poems are integrated into the illustrations.
A lengthy author’s note gives a more thorough description of Gwendolyn Brooks’s many influences and accomplishments. A timeline of her life, a bibliography, and a list of suggested readings are also provided.
You can learn more about Alice Faye Duncan here. More information about Xia Gordon is available here.
Poet, Pilgrim, Rebel: The Story of Anne Bradstreet, America’s First Published Poet
By Katie Munday Williams
Illustrated by Tania Rex
Anne Bradstreet wasn’t supposed to become America’s first published poet. As Poet, Pilgrim, Rebel tells us, she wasn’t supposed to become a poet at all.
Anne Bradley (née Dudley) was born into a Puritan family, and Puritans had strict rules about what girls and women could do. Becoming a poet definitely wasn’t on the list of acceptable behavior. Fortunately for us all, Anne’s father allowed her to listen as he and his friends talked about music, astronomy, and medicine, and she became knowledgeable about more than cooking and cleaning. The man she married at age 16 also encouraged her to think for herself.
Anne and her family felt compelled to leave England after the king decided that Puritans would no longer be allowed to practice their religion. They migrated to the American colonies, where life was hard for the colonists. Food was sometimes scarce, and sickness was common. After Anne recovered from a serious illness at age 20, she wanted to write a poem to express her gratitude. Not wanting to be banished for being too outspoken, she carefully phrased it as a religious poem.
When her first poem was well received, Anne wrote more of them. Eventually, a collection of her poems was published in England.
As Katie Munday Williams points out in an author’s note, Anne Bradstreet poetry is worthy of note not just because it was the first poetry published by an American poet. It’s worthy of note not just because she was pregnant or nursing for much of the time she was writing it. It’s worthy of note because it’s excellent poetry!
The illustrations by Tania Rex are rendered with elegant simplicity. The colors are muted in keeping with the Puritan way of life, but lovely touches of color are seen in fruits, birds, and flowers, as well as in Anne’s cheeks. The illustrations will give young readers a glimpse of colonial life, including those of Anne writing with a quill pen by candlelight.
An author’s notes give more information about Anne Bradstreet’s life and why her work is significant.
You can learn more about Katie Munday Williams here. More information about Tania Rex is available here.
A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams
By Jen Bryant
Illustrated by Melissa Sweet
In her illustrator’s note to A River of Words, Melissa Sweet writes that she made a lot of false starts because “nothing I did seemed powerful enough to match his poems.” I think most people can understand how she must have felt. We’re talking about William Carlos Williams, one of the most famous and influential poets in history! Encapsulating his life and work into a picture book biography would be a daunting task for anyone, but Sweet and her colleague Jen Bryant were more than up to the challenge.
William Carlos Williams is usually known by all three of his names, which makes him seem formal, maybe even pompous, but as a child he was known as Willie.
In A River of Words, we learn that Willie became interested in writing poems as a young boy, but he quickly found that imitating the work of famous poets didn’t suit him. He began to experiment with new ways of writing poems, letting each poem “find its own special shape on the page.”
Willie also didn’t want to write about things he’d never seen. He wanted to “write about ordinary things – plums, wheelbarrows, and weeds, fire engines, children, and trees — things that I see when I walk down my street or look out my window.”
Poets weren’t paid any better in 1902 than they are now, and Willie needed a way to earn a living and support a family. He decided to study medicine, and he later became a busy family physician, seeing patients in their homes and in his office. He never stopped writing poems, although he did resort to his famous practice of jotting bits of poems on prescription pads.
Jen Bryant tells the story of Willie’s life in simple but precise words, which match the style for which he became known. Willie was known for his observation of the small details of life, and Melissa Sweet’s mixed media collages are filled with small details that invite close observation by young readers. I especially like the page that shows many versions of his famous “So much depends upon a red wheel barrow” poem typed on an old manual typewriter. It shows that Willie fiddled with different placements of the words on the page before getting the poem just the way he wanted it.
The end-papers of the book feature the text of nine poems by William Carlos Williams. The back matter includes a timeline of his life that is juxtaposed with a timeline of world events and a timeline of the publication dates for his many books of poetry. In addition to Sweet’s illustrator’s note, there is an author’s note from Jen Bryant and a list of books for further reading about Williams’ life.
You can learn more about Jen Bryant here. More information about Melissa Sweet is available here.
The poet June Jordan wrote that “Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.” In a time of “alternative facts” and conspiracy theories, that makes poetry more important than ever. Let’s give thanks for the truth-telling poets who have come before us, and let’s encourage children to become the truth-telling poets we’ll need in the future.
Thanks to Suzy Hazelwood at pexels.com for the original image used in the featured image above.