Biographical Poetry: Carver: Life in Poems by Marilyn Nelson

BIBLIOGRAPHY:Nelson, Marilyn. 2001. Carver: A Life in Poems. Asheville, N.C. Front Street. ISBN 1-886910-53-7
SUMMARY: This 59 poem novel depicts George Washington Carver’s life from different point of views. In this novel, Carver’s life begins from an infant and continues all through his death. His challenges of being born into a slave family, coupled with his intense desire to learn, guide the book as Carver manages to use his intelligence, determination, and ingenuity to follow his dreams. Even while facing seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Carver managed to inspire others and lived a life of learning and aiding others. These poems vividly portray Carver through some of his accomplishments and take the reader through a journey of his life.

ANALYSIS: This novel is replete with imagery that helps the reader visualize what is happening. In “Watkins Laundry and Apothecary: Mariah Watkins, Neosho, Missouri,” the speaker states, “He was sweet with the neighbor children. / Taught the girls to crochet. / Showed the boys / a seed he said held a worm / cupped hands warmed so it wriggled and set / the seed to twitching.” The reader can imagine how nice and helpful Carver was. Even as a 10-year-old child, he was already helping others and teaching what he knew. In the poem “The Perceiving Self: Fort Scott, Kansas, 1879,” Carver sees a lynching. This is both vividly and abstractly presented. Nelson provides an arcing, yet detailed, look into Caver’s life from the beginning to the end. She has a fine eye for including both the daily details and many accomplishments that show Carver in all his aspects. Too many times biographies seek to put the subject on a pedestal, but the truly great ones reveal the subject as a person and an intricate one at that. Nelson integrates details about Carver’s life as a scholar, an inventor, an explorer, a devoted religious man, and a mentor. Across these numerous roles, Nelson makes it clear that Carver brought a passion to all his tasks and interests.Throughout the text Nelson reveals many of the inventions that can be credited to Carver. Perhaps he is best remembered for his work with peanuts, but he was also a wizard with sweet potatoes and tomatoes as well. Carver’s knowledge of the natural world and plants allowed him to create a blue pigment that many had strived to create since the days of King Tut. This color surrounds us in our daily lives, but was only made possible by Carver’s knowledge, his curious mind and his unwillingness to give up on a project once he embarked on it. Nelson memorializes this discovery in her poem, “Egyptian Blue.”

USE: The poem I would use would be “Last Talk with Jim Hardwick: A ‘found’ Poem.” This selection is the culmination of Carver. He knows that his life is at an end, and that he cannot go on anymore. However, he understands that he will not ‘die’ because his legacy will live on.

When I die I will live again.

By nature I am a conserver.

I have found Nature

…After

I leave this world

I do not believe I am through.

…

When you get your grip

on the last rung of the ladder

and look over the wall

as I am now doing,

you don’t need their proofs:

You see.

You know

you will not die.

After students receive their poem and I read it twice, I will ask students to tell me what they think of it. I will then engage students with a discussion about our legacy and what we want to leave behind. Students will then be asked to write down 3 things that they would like to leave behind, as well as 3 things that their parents have left behind for them. We will then have a class discussion regarding what our contribution to our universe is, and then we will discuss what we can do to achieve such dreams.