Poetry Friday–Celebrating Nikki Grimes!

Happy Poetry Friday!

I’m happy to be part of the Poetry Friday celebration of awarding winning author, poet, and artist Nikki Grimes! I’ve read a handful of Nikki’s 75 + books and have many more waiting for me. What comes to mind when I think about her and her writing is her honesty and integrity to what she’s writing and creating. Although she claims that she was an introvert, she has throughout her writing career shared her writing, poetry, and process, via lectures, workshops, school visits, blog visits, and conferences in the US and around the world. Thanks for giving so much to all of us!

Thanks to Irene Latham who ignited the idea to honor Nikki Grimes, within and beyond the Poetry Friday Community, and who is also hosting this weeks roundup at her blog Live Your Poem!

Thinking about where to start this celebration of Nikki almost leaves me overwhelmed, for her full bodied spirit alone won’t fit within this post. How about beginning by visiting her own blog, Nikki Grimes The Poetry Zone, where you will find a cornucopia about Nikki, her writing, books, intriguing videos, and much more… Be sure to listen to her recent interview on Sree Sreenivasan’s  “@Sree’s Daily Covid19 Show #46: Poetry Night, in celebration of National Poetry Month,” 2020. Here she offers writers and poets who influenced her–most prominent being James Baldwin; how she serendipitously became specifically a children’s author/poet; how she’s coping in the current pandemic; and in addition she read many of her poems.

You can also find four different interviews of Nikki at Michelle Heidenrich Barnes’ blog Today’s Little Ditty. One includes a review of Nikki’s recent picture book, BOOK LOVE, on  Book Love: SOUTHWEST SUNRISE, May 7, 2020. A second includes an interview and shared mentor poems from her book’s BRONX MASQUERADE and BETWEEN THE LINES, on Classroom Connection with Nikki Grimes post, March 2, 2018.

Stop by Wordsong/Boyds Mills & Kane website for a review and video of Nikki’s new book ORDINARY HAZARDS A MEMOIR. I’ve chosen to share a poem from this book, which has received numerous awards and starred reviews including a Michael L. Printz Honor Book, a  Robert F. Sibert Honor Book, and starred reviews from The Horn Book, School Library Connection, Booklist, Shelf Awareness, Publishers Weekly, and BCCB.  Ordinary Hazards is, in her own words, her own story of darkness and light. A compelling piece of verse writing from her early beginning, of being tucked into a dresser drawer while living with her schizophrenic mother, and loved but absent father. Being shuffled from one foster home to another, and finding solace in writing at the early age of six.  How timely that her book has come to us during the corona virus, and how fortunate that she also offers us light, when all the world seeks it.

 MY BLACK ME

My father fed me
Invisible Man,
Native Son,
No Longer at Ease,
Black man’s Burden,
and the more I read,
the madder I got,
and I already
had reason
to scream,
but my father
kept me dreaming
of what words
I might bring
to the world.

© 2020 Nikki Grimes. All rights reserved.

With permission of Wordsong/Boyds Mills & Kane

Roses for Nikki, as she grows them and loves them…

Yellow Roses, © 2019 Michelle Kogan, pen and watercolor.

I’ve taken a line from Nikki’s poem MY BLACK ME, and wrote a golden shovel reflecting on our times, the protests going on, and the too many lives that have been lost. Thanks for your line Nikki!

GIVE BACK LIFE…

Understand systemic racism, and say No
to Black and Brown inequality. Let it no Longer
linger, festering all aspects of life At
all levels. Begin Change now, turn pain into Ease.

© 2020 Michelle Kogan

More roses and a garden image, for Nikki’s a gardener too…

Foster Beach Roses, © 2019 Michelle Kogan,  watercolor and watercolor pencil.

 

Veggie Seedlings, © 2020 Michelle Kogan, pen and watercolor.

Visit Renée LaTulippe’s site No Water River to find out more about what Poetry Friday is.