Nikki Grimes is on fire! Not only does this beautiful book allow these Harlem Renaissance female poets to step forward in their own power, using their own voices, but when Grimes uses the Golden Shovel poetry form originated by Terrance Hayes, these new poems are used as praise songs for the originals.
This is the first time I have seen this form (Golden Shovel) but what a wonderful way to create voice and word play. This is also a fabulous way to take analysis out of the realm of academic "mansplaining" and into the realm of possibility and deep reverberations. Read this book, coming out in January 2021, to see what Grimes can do with this form.
The "rules" of Golden Shovel:
- grab a striking line from a poem, or for short poems, take it in its entirety. Bold that striking line or poem.
- Arrange that striking line or poem in a line, word by word, in the right margin
- You then create. your new poem, keeping the borrowed line or poem as the last words of each line
The result is a lovely call and response from the ancestors to Ms. Grimes and back again. What a fabulous homage to these, until now, forgotten names that sit equal to Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Paul Laurence Dunbar.
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