Poetry Friday: A Gift from Jacqueline Woodson

  Amy at The Poem Farm is hosting

this week's roundup of poetic goodness.

Thanks, Amy, for hosting. 

I agree with Amy, "Life is a gift." 

 

I woke up at four am this morning and that's an improvement over my one and two am wake ups of late. After a quick FB post, I settled in for my favorite new tradition (thinking that I only had until 7:30 PT) of listening to Jacqueline Woodson's Live Facebook reading from Thursday of Brown Girl Dreaming.

I pulled my copy of the book off the shelf on Wednesday and while flipping through it, I stopped and read the words of "sometimes, no words are needed." I was hopeful that Jacqueline would read this poem, but she skips pages sometimes. I opened the book occasionally as I listened to Thursday's broadcast, just to be sure she hadn't passed up this poem.

Jacqueline read "down the road" and then she flipped forward a few pages and I panicked, "Oh no, she's going to skip the poem I've been waiting for!"  

But she flipped back again, gave us the page number (p. 131), and shared the poem I'd been waiting to hear.

 

I have cherished the sharing of Brown Girl Dreaming on Facebook this week by Jacqueline Woodson. I love her description of the book shared in Thursday's reading: "...a memoir...a story of my coming of age as a writer, as a person who believes in the greater good, who believes in social responsibility, who believes in being an ally, who believes that there is a way in which we can and must take care of each other so that we can all walk safely through the world."

If you've missed listening in this week, I've just discovered that you can catch all five days here until Monday morning. Next week Jason Reynolds will be reading from his book, Look Both Ways. I am grateful to the writers and musicians and artists who are sharing freely with us during this time of pandemic. They keep the fear away and fill me with hope for a better world.