One Last Word: Wisdom from the Harlem Renaissance

Bibliography: 

Grimes, Nikki. One Last Word: Wisdom from the Harlem Renaissance. New York: Bloomsbury, 2017. ISBN: 978-1681196022

Summary:

In One Last Word, master poet Nikki Grimes transforms classic poetry of the Harlem Renaissance into new poems using a method called the “Golden Shovel.” By arranging the words of the source poem vertically in the right margin, they become the last words of each line of a new poem. The result is an empowering collection of classic works by Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, Gwendolyn Bennett, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and more, paired with their ingeniously crafted new incarnations by Nikki Grimes. The poems, divided into three sections (Emergency Measures, Calling Dreams, and To A Dark Girl), explore resilience, beauty, self-love, hatred, hope, and Black joy. Each pair of poems is beautifully complemented by a richly colored illustration from a different artist (including Grimes herself). A preface provides background information on the Harlem Renaissance and the Golden Shovel poetic form. The collection closes with short biographies of the poets and artists, as well as a thorough index. 

Analysis:

Nikki Grimes has created something remarkable in One Last Word: Wisdom from the Harlem Renaissance. In this compact volume, the Golden Shovel poetic method amplifies the wisdom passed down from the ancestors of the Harlem Renaissance. If the Harlem poets are beams of light, Grimes’s poems are prisms; they refract the wisdom into rainbows of expanded meaning. Because each word is extrapolated into a line of poetry, the poems are like three-dimensional meditations, and the effect is jaw-droppingly powerful. Georgia Douglas Johnson’s poem “Hope” is unfolded by Grimes into a new poem called “On Bully Patrol.” Johnson writes, “Frail children of sorrow, dethroned by a hue…” Grimes: 

My youngest limps home, feeble and frail

from a week of hate-filled reproaches aimed at dark children.

I pull her close, wipe away the tears of

the day. Still, draped in sadness, sorrow

clings to her skin. My sweet princess, dethroned.

I shape my love like fingers, pluck the splinters of hate, one by

one, until my child smiles again, a

glow rising in her warm, brown cheeks--a happy hue.

The poems are like medicine or skillful tools that remove shards of hurt from the reader. They heal and admonish, teaching readers how to see beauty in themselves, how to escape the hamster wheel of retaliation, how to persevere in the face of hardship and cruelty. “No matter what, don’t / let a few mean people shake you / till your young dreams lose their feathers and fall. / Hide those baby dreams in the cage of your heart--for now.” Grimes affirms the reader's dignity and strength in rich imagery and metaphors such as these throughout the collection. Her voice is soothing and clear, like a mother imparting solace and wisdom to her children. 

In her introductory poem “Emergency Measures,” Grimes writes, “My sister and I watch / the five-o’clock news, / which spells out / our worth in the world. / According to reports, / it’s somewhere on the minus side.” She continues, saying that her teacher tells her to “go in search of counsel / back, back, back / to the Harlem Renaissance, / when poetry burst like a dam / and a river of wisdom-words / rushed through the streets / I call home.” The speaker of the poem is unsure, dipping her spoon “into the bowl of years” to find “a few choice lines / to chew on, / and I think: / We’ll see. / We’ll see.” This cautious beginning gives way to poem after poem of truth and courage that readers will drink in, a powerful antidote to the horrors of racial injustice and brutality that continue to occur across the nation. In the concluding poem, she decides, “Teacher was right. / The past is a ladder / that can help you / keep climbing.” In the preface, Grimes poses the question, “Why look to the writers of the Harlem Renaissance for wisdom and strength in difficult times? Because these writers, so recently removed from slavery and a Jim Crow South, survived much. They still have much to teach us regarding toughness, survival, and a positive attitude.”

If you are searching for an empowering book to illuminate the relevance of Harlem Renaissance poetry in today’s world, look no further. This is a must-have book for every classroom, library, and household. Ages 10 and up. 

Excerpt:

“For A Poet” by Countee Cullen

I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth,
And laid them away in a box of gold;
Where long will cling the lips of the moth,
I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth;
I hide no hate; I am not even wroth
Who found earth’s breath so keen and cold;
I have wrapped my dreams in a silken cloth,
And laid them away in a box of gold.

“A Safe Place” by Nikki Grimes

Dream-killers daily stalk the streets you and I

travel, trying to trip us up, but we can give them the slip. I have

learned to protect my heart-songs. I keep them wrapped

in the well wishes of my family, the encouragement of my

truest friends. Sometimes, using pen and ink, I anchor my dreams

and let them sink in the margins of a diary. Or, maybe I slide them in

a smooth sandalwood box buried beneath my bed. But a

dream called impossible? That I tuck safely between the silken

folds of my private thought--tough as steel, thin as cloth.

Activities: 

• Pair readers up for performances of the original Harlem Renaissance poems together with Nikki Grimes’s new poems.
• Select six readers to play the parts of Jamar, Dina, Helena, Damian, Cora, and Blake from the poem “Crucible of Champions” for a powerful and theatrical moment. 
• Display poems from One Last Word so readers can appreciate the impressive poetic puzzle of the Golden Shovel method. Invite student poets to experiment with writing their own creations using this challenging form.