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Arnold Adoff's Poems and History
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From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 20:05:32 -0500
What an amazing, important, angry poem Arnold Adoff gave to the CCBC-Net community earlier today.
Arnold is one of the book community's elders with a perspective of history - his own, our own, and the collective histories of the communities within which many of us claim a place. He's one of the book community's seers. He continues to discover ways to use words, marks, and spaces on paper in the creation of sometimes edgy, often playful, occasionally comforting, always eloquent poems.
I've quoted countless times from Arnold Adoff's book "All the colors of the race" (Lothrop, 1982). In it Arnold Adoff wrote - and though I cannot replicate the impact of his words on the page, here are some of the words - "All the colors of the race / are / in my face, and just behind my face: / behind my eyes: / inside my head. / And inside my head, I give my self a place / at the end of a long / line / forming / it self into a circle. / And I am holding out my hands."
Thank you for using your gifts of seeing and writing and book-history-knowledge to express your anger, Arnold. Hurtful? Yes, for the ones who've worked to create a program on behalf of their organization. Confusing? Yes, to the ones for whom the references have no history or context. Helpful? Yes, for the ones who try to understand, grow, even learn.
Yes, Katy, you're absolutely right. Arnold's poem concerns history. Significant book history.
Some in the CCBC-Net community have probably already had an opportunity to read E.L. Konigsburg's "The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place" (Atheneum, 2004), set during the year when "...Sally Ride became the first American woman in space...and President Ronald Reagan signed legislation declaring that Martin Luther King Jr. had been born on the third Monday of every January, and henceforth the day(s) of his birth would be a legal holiday in our nation..."
Like Margaret Rose in Konigsburg's splendid novel, we realize once again that Time matters, that yesterday is History.
Peace, Ginny
Ginny Moore Kruse gmkruse at education.wisc.edu
Received on Tue 18 May 2004 08:05:32 PM CDT
Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 20:05:32 -0500
What an amazing, important, angry poem Arnold Adoff gave to the CCBC-Net community earlier today.
Arnold is one of the book community's elders with a perspective of history - his own, our own, and the collective histories of the communities within which many of us claim a place. He's one of the book community's seers. He continues to discover ways to use words, marks, and spaces on paper in the creation of sometimes edgy, often playful, occasionally comforting, always eloquent poems.
I've quoted countless times from Arnold Adoff's book "All the colors of the race" (Lothrop, 1982). In it Arnold Adoff wrote - and though I cannot replicate the impact of his words on the page, here are some of the words - "All the colors of the race / are / in my face, and just behind my face: / behind my eyes: / inside my head. / And inside my head, I give my self a place / at the end of a long / line / forming / it self into a circle. / And I am holding out my hands."
Thank you for using your gifts of seeing and writing and book-history-knowledge to express your anger, Arnold. Hurtful? Yes, for the ones who've worked to create a program on behalf of their organization. Confusing? Yes, to the ones for whom the references have no history or context. Helpful? Yes, for the ones who try to understand, grow, even learn.
Yes, Katy, you're absolutely right. Arnold's poem concerns history. Significant book history.
Some in the CCBC-Net community have probably already had an opportunity to read E.L. Konigsburg's "The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place" (Atheneum, 2004), set during the year when "...Sally Ride became the first American woman in space...and President Ronald Reagan signed legislation declaring that Martin Luther King Jr. had been born on the third Monday of every January, and henceforth the day(s) of his birth would be a legal holiday in our nation..."
Like Margaret Rose in Konigsburg's splendid novel, we realize once again that Time matters, that yesterday is History.
Peace, Ginny
Ginny Moore Kruse gmkruse at education.wisc.edu
Received on Tue 18 May 2004 08:05:32 PM CDT
