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30 Dec: "How to Listen" Jacqueline Woodson

Image result for brown girl dreaming poems

4 comments:

  1. Short and sweet.

    Nothing ground breaking, but true. How silence or nothing can say or be so much more than so called nothing.

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  2. I disagree with the adverb "even" at the beginning of the poem; it's useless. It defeats the purpose and simplicity of the tone....it cheapens it. Like the reader suspects there should be more. "the silence has a story to tell you." is strong enough to stand alone...the use of adverb "just" is prevalent. The Silence becomes the protagonist and listening the hero.

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    Replies
    1. I also think we, as readers, are highly swayed by the imagery behind the poem. Is this fair? Can we, indeed, change its meaning? Yes. Absolutely. I would suggest we remove imagery from the poems unless it is purposed by the author themselves.

      I was just thinking about this in regards to book covers as well. The illustrators and the authors' ideas...I think that is why my mom always loved Jan Brett as a children's story author- she authors and illustrates them both.

      But then again, these images are so powerful. Tolkien illustrated his first works- and let's see, for a lookup who else has..:

      http://www.paperclipsmagazine.com/10-literary-authors-who-illustrate-their-own-work/

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    2. The adverb "even" is there because this is a haiku. All ten of the "How to Listen" poems in Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming are haiku.

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