From “Show Way”— Poetry as History
When Soonie’s great grandma was seven, she was soldfrom the Virginia land to a plantation in South Carolinawithout her maor pabut with some muslin her ma had given her and two needlesshe got from the...
View ArticleFrom The Other Side — Poetry As Picture Book
That summer, the fence that stretched through our town seemed bigger.We lived in a yellow house on one side of it.White people lived on the other.And Mama said “Don’t climb over that fence when you...
View ArticleFrom Locomotion — Poetry As Fiction
Group Home Before Miss Edna’s House (from the book “Locomotion”) The monsters that come at night don’tbreathe fire, have two heads or long claws. The monsters that come at night don’tcome bloody and...
View ArticleFrom Brown Girl Dreaming — Poetry As Memoir
reading I am not my sister. Words from the books curl around each other make little sense until I read them again and again, the story settling into memory. Too slow the teacher says. Read faster. Too...
View ArticleYoung People’s Poet Laureate
On June 1, 2015 I began a two-year term as Young People’s Poet Laureate. Wondering what that is? The Poetry Foundation’s website describes it this way: “Awarded by the Poetry Foundation for a two-year...
View ArticleAnother Brooklyn
An anthropologist looks back on her past to understand the death of her mother and the loss of her closest friends. Another Brooklyn is a novel about love and memory. And of course, about Brooklyn....
View ArticleHarbor Me
6 kids who learn differently are sent to a different room every Friday. There, with no adults present, they begin to reveal things the others didn’t know about their lives. Where it takes place: In the...
View ArticleThe Day You Begin
There will be times when you walk into a room and no one there is quite like you. So what are you going to do? Where it takes place: It takes place every single day all over the world. Where I wrote...
View ArticleRed at the Bone
So many things happen in this story that it’s hard to say what it’s ‘about.’ It’s about love, and family and the Tulsa Race Massacre and Brooklyn and getting pregnant young and falling in love for the...
View ArticleBefore The Ever After
There’s something not right about ZJ’s dad these days. He’s always been a great guy – Pro Football Player, star tight end, great father and ZJ’s hero. But now, things are different. And thanks to ZJ’s...
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