Book Description
In 1955, people all over the United States knew that Emmett Louis Till was a fourteen-year-old African American boy lynched for supposedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi.The brutality of his murder, the open-casket funeral, and the acquittal of the men tried for the crime drew wide media attention.Award-winning poet Marilyn Nelson reminds us of the boy whose fate helped spark the civil rights movement.This martyr's wreath, woven from a little-known but sophisticated form of poetry, challenges us to speak out against modern-day injustices, to "speak what we see." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

For Whom the Bell Tills/Tolls
The tragic story of the death of Emmett Till, Jr. in 1955 is one that plays a large part in the Civil Rights movement.Till, then 14 a Chicagoan was visiting relatives in the South.He said "hi, baby" to a woman who was white.The hue and cry was fierce; how dare this child talk to someone who was not of the same race?

To make matters worse, a posse was formed and Till as well as his cousin were roused from their beds and taken from the house they were in.Emmett Till, Jr. was beaten to death.

What makes this child's tragic death a turning point was that Till's mother had his funeral televised with an open casket.The world at large would see just what bigotry, ignorance and hatred was capable of and of one young casualty it claimed.Till's mother, who died in 2003 never stopped beating on the drum for her only child and for an end to cruelty and bigotry.Hers was a voice that was heard by people such as President Johnson (1963-68); Attorney General and later Senator Robert Kennedy; Martin Luther King and countless others.To this day I cannot watch that funeral dry eyed; the thought of the anguish this child's mother endurned for the remainder of her life is just....painful.

Emmett Till Jr.'s death, which took place some 10 years before Bloody Sunday aka March 7, 1965 was a touchstone event.In looking at the Civil War Movement; the riots; the efforts of many to secure fair and equal treatment for ALL individuals can look toward Emmett Till, Jr. as an unlikely martyr.This child's needless death, horrible as it was did call attention to similar racist-based atrocities being committed.

As heinous and atrocious the injustice to this child was, Marilyn Nelson offsets the horror with some beautiful poetry.The rhythm and flow of the words and the idyllic images contained in some of the sonnets stand in stark contrast to the ugly, leering head of Jim Crow and the Racist Regime that flourished.

Form Over Content
A fellow teacher is doing a unit on African-American lit and the Civil Rights Movement as a lead-in to Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird"."A Wreath for Emmett Till" was one of the books she shared with the class.I have perused it myself, still unsure whether I should actually purchase it or not.Two things other reviewers have mentioned that I too find appealing about the book are:1)The sheer complexity of constructing a heroic crown of sonnets and 2)the historical backdrop of the events described.Unfortunately, these aspects have very little to do with the content of the poems themselves.Most of the information about Till is contained in the preface and afterword, not in the poems themselves.Likewise, others reviewers, like I, praise Nelson for giving a tour-de-force in making a heroic crown of sonnets (and her commentaries about the sonnets were enlightening), but to be honest, the poems themselves were not particularly outstanding.I would buy the book more as an example of the structure and form of poetry rather than as an example of good poetry (If that makes sense).

Beautiful Poem
This book is in the form of a Heroic Sonnet is a brilliantly written book. It is about giving a wreath to Emmett Till, a young child who was lynched after whistling at a white woman. Till, who normally lived in Chicago, was spending the time at his uncle for the summer. After whistling at a white woman, Briant, Milan and a third person kidnapped Emmett Till. Soon after the kidapping, they lynched him. Later in the Trial, Briant and Milan were found not guilty, though later, it was proven they were guilty. This book was brilliantly written into a heroic sonnet, each of the first lines stating: R.I.P. EMMETT L. TILL. It got me emotionally connected, displeased by the racism people had back then (i.e. allowing Briant and Millan the right to be not guilty just because Till was Black). This book was brilliantly written through the use of similies. It allowed you to invision the racism back then. The only comment I have against it is the World Trade Center reference, mentioning 9/11 hadn't happened yet. Other than that, A Wreath for Emmet Till by Marilyn Nelsen was an excellent work of poetry.

Ambitious but highly disapointing
This ambitious poetry book is based on a little known poetic style known as a crown of sonnets, used historically to honor great kings.In this unique book, author Marilyn Nelson tries to apply it to an ordinary kid named Emmett Till whose name became household when he was brutally lynched, and outrage over his murder fueled the early flames of the black civil rights movement.

Nelson is admirable to tackle such a brutal and tough subject matter, however admiration is not enough to cover the fact that her poems are often hard to follow due to the ridged style, in addition to being tangential and lacking in any strong dramatic or emotional punch.She writes about Till's murder as she would weave it into a floral wreath, and sometimes that leaves the reader bored and wondering why we should even care about Nelson's pretty flowers.Her stated goal is to write about Till but he rarely makes an actual appearance in these poems, and her attempt to tie his murder into a larger history of lynching is poorly executed.At one point she ties Till's murder to the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, which comes out extremely contrived and tacked on, since the events, issues, emotions, and circumstances are completely different.She expands considerable ink wishing he had never been killed, which although very admirable, doesn't give her much space to explore the national impact of his death or the good that grew out of his tragedy.In addition, her lengthy and complex notes at the end of the book are absolutely necessary to understand her many intellectual allusions and symbols.I could not imagine giving this book to anyone under 16 and having them get it at all - I'm finishing my undergrad in two weeks and I was overwhelmed.While the poems pick up pathos towards the end, it really is not enough to save the whole set.

The illustrations by Philippe Lardy are nice but unremarkable, and given the poignant and brutal subject matter they are severely disappointing.Many of them are simplistic and pretty paintings of flowers and birds that fit the wreath theme but entirely loose the tragedy and power of Till's death.Like Nelson's poems, you need the complex notes at the back of the book to understand the many symbols in the oft-abstract illustrations.Emmett Till himself is only shown once, and the artist attempts to make him look like an EveryChild (even to the point of giving him no real facial expressions) which makes him look generic and dull.The art shines best when it is the most simple, such as when it is a textured background for the text itself, with simple shapes instead of complex allegories.When the best thing you can say about the illustrations is that they make nice and non-imposing backgrounds, you know the art is in trouble.

A Wreath for Emmett Till asks the reader to "bear witness to the atrocity" and take responsibility for this murder in our collective memory, but otherwise is not a call to any action or awareness.Unfortunately what sticks in the memory is a book that falls short of its lofty goals.

From Sisters Nineties Literary Group Book Review Editor
A Wreath for Emmett Till is my first encounter with Marilyn Nelson; a bittersweet introduction.As a member of the Sisters~Nineties Literary Group, this book fascinates me as it is a beautiful example of poetic mastery. When our editor gives us a writing assignment for our publication, I grumble and protest, then I revel in the experience; delighting in the success of learning about the world of poetry and all its various forms.The "sankofet," created by Debra Morrowloving Sisters~Nineties founder, comes to mind as I read this book.*

Ms. Nelson's rhyme scheme is a fourteen-line sonnet on each page linking the previous poem with the next as the last line of the previous poem is the first line of the next poem on the following page. In the world of poetry, this is known as a "crown of sonnets."

Although written for children, I had to read the book twice to "feel" the horrible images that this book so beautifully captures.References to flower, plants, and trees are symbolic and make up the "wreath" for Emmett.
Please read this book and share the experience with your children.The incident is described as the motivating force of the Civil Rights Movement.It is also a wake-up call to all those who continue to live a life of apathy and denial when it comes to standing up for the legacy of the African American struggle.

*Sankofet is a poetic form of three stanzas, each with seven lines. The fourth line of each stanza is the same. The last word of each stanza is the first word of the subsequent verse, and the last line of a Sankofet is the first line in the poem. The format of the Sankofet emulates the call-and-response motif of Afrikan musical tradition with the repetition of the fourth lines. The connecting words at the beginning and end of the stanzas represent the Afrikan cycle of life concept.

... Read more

Book Description
There is a skeleton on display in the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, Connecticut. It has been in the town for over 200 years. Over time, the bones became the subject of stories and speculation in Waterbury. In 1996 a group of community-based volunteers, working in collaboration with the museum staff, discovered that the bones were those of a slave named Fortune who had been owned by a local doctor. After Fortune's death, the doctor dissected the body, rendered the bones, and assembled the skeleton. A great deal is still not known about Fortune, but it is known that he was baptized, was married, and had four children. He died at about the age of 60, sometime after 1797. Marilyn Nelson was commissioned by the Mattatuck Museum and received a grant from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts to write a poem in commemoration of Fortune's life. The Manumission Requiem is that poem. Detailed notes and archival materials provide contextual information to enhance the reader's appreciation of the poem. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Seeking one's Fortune
There are as many ways of honoring the long forgotten as there are ways of mucking that honor up.I came to "Fortune's Bones" with just a bit of trepidation, I admit.Though I knew author Marilyn Nelson had created this book to honor a man long dead in the best way she knew how, I was still recovering from a similar, and foul, title called, "Journey To the Bottomless Pit" which also came out in 2004.In both books, a man who was a slave during his lifetime is honored with a children's book of fiction.In "Journey", the book was a simplistic version of a complicated man's life.I prayed that "Fortune's Bones" would not be the same.Those prayers were answered tenfold.Marilyn Nelson tells the story of Fortune in a manner respectful of his life, then accompanies this retelling with a requiem written in his honor.Though I would have enjoyed further factual information on the topic, this is a worthy addition to any poetry collection or non-fiction collection, for children, teens, or grown adults, anywhere.

There once was a man named Fortune.Born a slave in the 1700s, he and his wife and his children all belonged to a Dr. Preserved Porter.Later tests on Fortune's bones show that his life was not an easy one.His back was once broken and though he had a healthy skeleton, he died at the age of 60.When he did, Dr. Porter took Fortune's death as an opportunity to study human anatomy.He removed Fortune's skeleton, tapped the bones, and made himself a complete human skeleton.Every bone was carefully marked and studied by Porter and his ancestors.Years later, Fortune's name was lost and the skeleton was mislabeled "Larry" and given to the Matttatuck Museum.In the 1990s historians did research on it and found Fortune's true name once again.Now the only question that remains is what to do with Fortune's bones.Do we bury them and put him to rest at long last, or do we learn more from them about 1700s slaves and slavery?The question remains unanswered, but author Marilyn Nelson has done what she can.In this book she writes a requiem in Fortune's memory.Filled with free verse poetry, a Kyrie of the Bones, and a Sanctus at the end, "Fortune's Bones" is a text of respect.

One of the many things I loved about this book was the fact that as an author/poet, Nelson tells us why she wrote what she did.One poem is entitled, "Not My Bones", in which Fortune states clearly, "I am not my body", to anyone who cares to listen.This phrase comes from the Vietnamese Buddhist leader Thich Nhat Hahn, a fact that could well have gone uncredited by a less careful author.Each poem in this book is accompanied by factual information pertaining to Fortune's story, along with photographs, papers, tapestries, maps, and other important documents of the period.As a whole these poems speak beautifully together, forming a single Requiem.I especially liked "Dinah's Lament" in which Fortune's wife speaks of the cruel injustice of being forced to dust the bones that once would, "hold me when I cried; to dust where his soft lips were, and his chest what curved its warm against my back at night".Nelson, the accomplished voice behind her other great book, "Carver: A Life In Poems", is at her best here.

Admittedly, there were aspects of this book left unspoken that I (and I'm sure others) would have liked to have heard more about.The book is a Requiem and doesn't dwell on the fascinating process scientists took to discover Fortune again.There's a small series of three pictures on one page that shows three stages of facial reconstruction of Fortune, taken from his bones.That's something that would have made for a fascinating story in and of itself.Or how did the researchers and historians eventually discover who Fortune really was?Who did they talk to?What did they read?Sadly, such information will have to wait for another book.It's not answered here.

"Fortune's Bones", will obviously be snatched up by any child and/or teen assigned to read a book of poems since it's a mere 32 pages altogether.This is a great good thing.In spite of its scant length, this is a title that will teach a lot of information to a lot of kids in a wonderfully stirring way.The poems are mindful of the past and give the greatest of respect to a man of whom we know so little.A wonderful publication

Fortune's remains the Mattatuck Museum
Fortune's skeleton is not on display. The exhibit about Fortune at the Mattatuck Museum includes a photographic illusion allowing visitors to see an image of Fortune's skeleton transform into a painting of Fortune as he may have looked in life. Fortune's actual bones have been carefully placed in archival museum storage, awaiting a community decision about whether to bury the remains or preserve them for future study. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

one of the best volumes of contemporary poetry
There is no doubt in my mind that Marilyn Nelson's poetry will be remembered for generations to come, and this collection, _The Homeplace_ (which was a finalist for the National Book Award), is the primary reason why. Nelson's poetry is good by any standards, but _The Homeplace_ stands head and shoulders above her work, which says quite a bit. I've read her new and selected poems. They were very good. The only complaint is that they weren't divided by volumes, so it wasn't until i picked up _The Homeplace_ and read it that I realized just how good the poems in this volume are. Because _The Homeplace_ isn't a collection of short poems, rather it is one long narrative poem. It's divided into two sections. Section I tells the story of her mother's side of the family, going back five generations to her great-great grandmother, Diverne. The story of this family goes through slavery, the turn of the century, wars, and up to the point where her mother and father meet. It's a heroic and touching story. Section II is the story of her father's time as WWII as a Tuskegee Airman. _The Homeplace_ contains everything good about poetry, and everything that poetry should be: story, form, meaning, love, and a wonderful use of language. This isn't a book you should pass over. It should be read--slowly and again and again.

A Story in Poems
In The Homeplace, Marilyn Nelson's third book, the author writes about members of her family.In the first part, poems describe the lives of her maternal ancestors going back five generations.The second part focuses on her father and his colleagues, the first black members of the Air Force.Though individual poems are capable of standing alone, the collection chronicles the history of American race relations, from Diverne, a slave, to Pomp, who lives with the stigma of his mixed blood immediately following the Civil War, to the Tuskegee Airmen, who must repeatedly handle skepticism about their abilities.Individual poems describe anecdotes, little moments in these lives, sometimes told in the first person and sometimes in third.The general sense creates a quilt of such moments, with individual poems contributing to the whole. ... Read more

Book Description
Word count: 3333. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Horn Book Magazine, published by Horn Book, Inc. on January 1, 2002. The length of the article is 1447 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Abracadabra, alakazam, paz, salaam, shalom, amen. (Fiction and Poetry Award Winner).(author Marilyn Nelson)(Transcript)
Author: Marilyn Nelson
Publication: The Horn Book Magazine (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 2002
Publisher: Horn Book, Inc.
Volume: 78Issue: 1Page: 41(5)

Article Type: Transcript

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Book Description
Soaring images, rhythmic language, and wry humor come together in these three narrative poems that explore travel from an African American historical and social perspective. A cab ride turns into an amazing encounter with the driver, an amateur physicist whose ideas about space and time travel spark the poet's musings on chutzpah and artistic ambition. A trip to Triolet, a Creole village in the Indian Ocean island nation of Mauritius, leads the poet to ponder the past and present as she reflects on the ironic complexities of the slave trade and its legacy shared by so many peoples.And in "The Cachoeira Tales," longing to take her family on a journey to "some place sanctified by the Negro soul," the poet finds herself in Brazil's Bahia, along with a theater director, a jazz musician, a retired commercial pilot, an activist, a university student, and two mysterious African American women whom they meet along the way.In rhymed couplets, each pilgrim tells a story, and the result is a rollicking, sensual exploration of spirit and community, with a nod to Chaucer and to traditional Trickster tales.

Using her remarkable ability to educate and inspire, Marilyn Nelson demonstrates the power of travel to transform our imaginations. We have long known that travel broadens; in these poems, it also deepens and makes wiser.

Joined skin to skin, we moved like molecules
in the great, impossible miracle
of atmosphere, swaying to the music,
all eyes on the stage, all hearts attuning
themselves in beautiful polyrhythmy,
one shaking booty. On one side of me
a young man danced; I felt his muscled warmth
flow into mine, his pure, sexual strength.
On my other sides young women danced, whose curves
bumped me softly, dancing without reserve,
hands waving in the air, releasing scent
fragrant as nard. We danced in reverent,
silent assent to the praise-song of drums.
—from "Olodum" of "The Cachoeira Tales" ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

good collection
nelson's collection as a whole is pretty good, though it does drop off a bit in the hermitage section. her poems are poems of home and family and spirituality. it's a good selection of her work.

A Mother's Insight
Marilyn Neslon's The Fields of Praise is a book about motherhood. She is a refreshing turn from the sexually explicit yet uninterpretable poetry that pervades modern day poetry. The compassionate and romantic pieces in herbook are generally directed towards children. Though her poems oftenexpress fear and concern, they are not exploding with the dark, depressingdiction of utter despair that pervades current poetry. She brings thereader into the real world of a loving heart without beating the readerover the head with fraudulent fervor or suffocating the reader withmeloncholy. As a mother hunts down and abolishes anything she feelswill harm her family, Marilyn Nelson is quick to criticize perceived socialills. Some of her poetry takes on the appearance of criticism anddenunciation and can even be interpreted to be bigoted. In many ways herpoetry is of a right wing conservative nature as opposed to the liberalovertones that her contemporaries write with. It is always a pleasure tosee someone who strays from the norm, however, her overall imagery and toneare not appropriate for effective social critique. Mrs. Nelson shouldcontinue to provide the audience with an attentive watch over her children,but she cannot be both the lobbyist and the mother.

Love That Sex
Marilyn Nelson's book The Fields of Praise is an excellent collection of poetry that captures the deep-down curiosity of the reader.Most of her poems have a parental tone and reflect on her life experiences with her mother and with herself as a mother.Also, several selections deal withthe deep down nature of humans and the reason for our actions, such as in"Propositions," where she asks the difficult question of whereour sexual desires come from.As a religious person, one of my favoritesis "Thus Far by Faith."It is about the faith that the oppressedAfrican Americans had while they were held captive by slavery.It actuallyreached out to me and made me examine some parts of my life and realizethat I was worried about nothing.One poem, "Rilke's ThirdElegy" still baffles me.I had the privilege of listening to herrecite some of her poems, and someone asked her to read this poem, whichsomeone else wrote, but she included it in her book.When someone askedher about the meaning, she said "Well I think it is aboutmasturbation," but I think she was joking.Marilyn Nelson does a goodjob of capturing the readers imagination and discusses life and decisionmaking in depth.I enjoyed her book and would suggest it to any poetrylover.

The Agony and the Ecstasy
In The Fields of Praise, Marilyn Nelson brings her views to life in a series of well-constructed poems.Her poems cover a wide array of topics, to include racism, sexism, religion, motherhood, illicit sex, and poverty.The characters in her poems commit unimaginable crimes and achieveinconceivable feats.Indeed, Nelson's poems cover the entire humanspectrum. Nelson writes in a deep, penetrating style.Skipping thenonsense that some writers embrace, she delves to the heart of the matter,analyzing and constantly questioning human motives.Indeed, Nelson is notafraid to confront the sickening evil that lurks within human nature andthe events that unfold when the malevolence is unleashed.Her poems onpure, unadulterated evil reflect her fearless stance on describing, and infact deploring the evil in human nature.Nelson offers an accurate, candidview of the events that unfold around her.On a lighter note,Nelson analyzes with extreme clarity the unconditional love a mother hasfor her child, and the unbridled purity of the natural world.Nelsoncelebrates the love and affection that is found within the souls of allhuman beings.Most of all, however, she analyzes the deep-rooted maternalinstincts of mothers.In her poems, Nelson argues that the bond between amother and her child is indestructible.In many of her works, Nelsondescribes the intense protectiveness of females toward their offspring.The Fields of Praise is an excellent collection of Nelson's poems thatprovides deep insight into the positive and negative aspects of humannature.Indeed, Nelson's knowledge and deep comprehension of humantendencies shines through in her works.

Selected Praise
The Fields of Praise, a compilation of related poems by Marilyn Nelson, had both very good pieces as well as some mediocre poems. I appreciated Ms. Nelson's attempt to categorize her poems into a few broad categorieshowever I thought the poems in her third section "Hermitage"became redundant with the last stanzas acting almost like punchlines.However like mentioned earlier, their area few gems that make thiscollection worth having. My personal favorite piece is the very last one ofthe book, "A Minor Miracle". I thought the realism (also knowingthat it is a true story helps) encapsulated in this piece was amazing.While I have not read every poem in this collection, there are some that Idislike and others that I like.Overall, discovery of an enjoyable poem,like "A Minor Miracle", makes the time spent hunting worthwhile. ... Read more

Book Description
Pemba knows she's not crazy. But who is that looking out at her through her mirror's eye? And why is the apparition calling her "friend"? Her real friends are back home in Brooklyn, not in the old colonial house in Colchester, Connecticut, where none of this would have happened if Daddy were still alive. But now all Pemba has is Mom and that strange old man, Abraham. Maybe he's the crazy one.

Thank goodness for Pemba's Playlist and the journal she keeps. There are so many answers deep inside that music. So much is revealed in Pemba's poetry -- the bops she writes and those coming through her iPod. Phyllis, an 18th-century slave girl, has answers too. But Phyllis's reality billows out from her visits to Pemba, visits that transform both girls in ways neither expected.

In this supernatural tale, the voices of these two characters entwine to put a new spin on a paranormal story. As a mystery unfolds, many truths are revealed-- about honesty, freedom, redemption, and friendship.

Excerpt:

Miles of highway and nothin

but trees.Mom's movin me to Nowhere,

CT when I used to live in the center of the universe:

Brooklyn, NY.This must be some kind of evil curse. . . .

I'm journalin like my hand's on fire, ear buds blarin:

~Pemba

The truth everywhere evident:

my days are numbered in our happy home.

The only home I know.

Both in here and out there, I am invisible. . .

~Phyllis

... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from American Scholar, published by Thomson Gale on January 1, 2007. The length of the article is 646 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Nine Times Nine, on Awe.(Poem)
Author: Marilyn Nelson
Publication: American Scholar (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 76Issue: 1Page: 71(3)

Article Type: Poem

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Book Description
This digital document is an article from Poetry, published by Thomson Gale on December 1, 2004. The length of the article is 3700 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Letters to the editor.(Letter to the Editor)
Author: Jon Parrish Peede
Publication: Poetry (Magazine/Journal)
Date: December 1, 2004
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 185Issue: 3Page: 241(10)

Article Type: Letter to the Editor

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Book Description
This digital document is an article from Poetry, published by Thomson Gale on October 1, 2005. The length of the article is 2574 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Letters to the editor.(Letter to the Editor)
Author: David Fenza
Publication: Poetry (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 187Issue: 1Page: 64(9)

Article Type: Letter to the Editor

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Book Description
This digital document is an article from Chief Executive (U.S.), published by Chief Executive Publishing on January 1, 2002. The length of the article is 766 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: A little hospitality, please.(Editorial)
Author: Marilyn Carlson Nelson
Publication: Chief Executive (U.S.) (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 2002
Publisher: Chief Executive Publishing
Page: 8(1)

Article Type: Editorial

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