I was the lucky winner of a free copy of Legacy by Nikki Grimes. I would have, should have a copy of this book, but hadn’t bought it yet. I recently subscribed to Chris Barton’s newsletter, and low and behold, was the winner of this book on my first month. You can be lucky, too. Subscribe here. His newsletters are full of stuff, author interviews on “This Book is Dedicated to”, promotional materials, and links to more.
In Legacy, Nikki Grimes uses the golden shovel form to celebrate women poets of the Harlem Renaissance. Each Renaissance poem is accompanied by a golden shovel and an illustration by a Black woman artist. It’s beautifully pulled together into 3 sections: Heritage, Earth Mother, and Taking Notice.
The poems I am featuring today are about poetry, the writing of poems. The fancy term is ars poetica.
Notice the tactile in this poem, kneel, wriggling, and my favorite “water which satisfies, soothes, tickles–what wet word/ pours itself into the vessel that/you call thought?” Nikki Grimes calls us to notice it all and make poetry.
And this one I will print out for my brown girl writers this year.
I love the instruction to “Write chocolate poems!” Can’t you taste it? I’ll bring in Dove chocolates, the kind with a message on the wrapper and hand them this poem. Yes! I’m excited to start a new year of teaching with this book in my hands. Thanks, Chris Barton and Nikki Grimes!
Reflections on the Teche 
Books as unexpected gifts tend to come just at the right time.
Margaret, these are beautiful poems. I am smiling right now imagining your brown girl poets eating their Dove chocolates and being inspired by Nikki Grimes writing “visions brown as their skin.”
Thanks, Margaret, for making us aware of this treasure trove. And I love your ideas for using the poems in your classroom. As you may know, I’ve been working on a book that profiles 12 black Louisiana women writers, and it has just been accepted by the History Press, so the book you’ve introduced me to is particularly interesting to me.
Lucky you to win this treasure! Lucky us that you’re sharing a sneak peek here!