Hip Hop Speaks to Children - a Poetry Friday post

[kellyrfineman]

Comments

[jamarattigan]

I'm excited about this book! I loved Poetry Speaks to Children, and think kids will enjoy getting into the hip hop groove. It is puzzling, as you mention, why some non hip-hop poems were included. The subtitle, "Celebrating Poetry with a Beat," indicates a liberal interpretation of the genre, citing derivatives or predecessors like be bop, as you said. There could have also been concerns about providing a few more well-known poems/poets to satisfy buyers not that familiar with hip hop artists.

[kellyrfineman]

My take on it is that the editors (Giovanni, the panel that worked with her, and/or the woman to whom she reported) decided to include works of particular interest to the minority groups most closely associated with hip hop. As Shelf Elf notes, the introduction is very academic in tone, and I think they were trying to walk a line between fun and educational, and they wanted to add more "meat" to the collection without pulling in hip hop songs about darker, heavier topics. (Some of it also may have to do with permissions, and/or with the bias of the editor(s) in selecting specific poets.)

[kellyrfineman]

I tried that, too. And in the case of Lucille Clifton's poem, "why some people me mad at me sometimes", I suppose it could be the use of Ebonics in the title, which is similar language. When I asked Nikki Giovanni why that particular poem was included, her reply had to do with how pretty the page looks, and she said "the illustrator had a good time with it

[kellyrfineman]

That was a new one by me, too.

[mlyearofreading]

I'm thinking we'll have a hip-hop Poetry Friday in my classroom next week!

[kellyrfineman]

I bet the kids will love it!

[anonymous]

Thanks for the detailed review, Kelly. I'm seeing thumbs-up everywhere for this. May need to add it to our basket of poetry books this year.

[kellyrfineman]

My favorite kids' collection for the year (so far, but I'm behind on my reading) is Honeybee by Naomi Shihab Nye. But this book is probably more generally accessible.