Carver: A Life in Poems
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Overview
This collection of poems assembled by award-winning writer Marilyn Nelson provides young readers with a compelling, lyrical account of the life of revered African-American botanist and inventor George Washington Carver. Born in 1864 and raised by white slave owners, Carver left home in search of an education and eventually earned a master’s degree in agriculture. In 1896, he was invited by Booker T. Washington to head the agricultural department at the all-black-staffed Tuskegee Institute. There he conducted innovative research to find uses for crops such as cowpeas, sweet potatoes, and peanuts, while seeking solutions to the plight of landless black farmers. Through 44 poems, told from the point of view of Carver and the people who knew him, Nelson celebrates his character and accomplishments. She includes prose summaries of events and archival photographs.Synopsis
This collection of poems assembled by award-winning writer Marilyn Nelson provides young readers with a compelling, lyrical account of the life of revered African-American botanist and inventor George Washington Carver. Born in 1864 and raised by white slave owners, Carver left home in search of an education and eventually earned a master's degree in agriculture. In 1896, he was invited by Booker T. Washington to head the agricultural department at the all-black-staffed Tuskegee Institute. There he conducted innovative research to find uses for crops such as cowpeas, sweet potatoes, and peanuts, while seeking solutions to the plight of landless black farmers. Through 44 poems, told from the point of view of Carver and the people who knew him, Nelson celebrates his character and accomplishments. She includes prose summaries of events and archival photographs.
VOYA
Most historical figures are chronicled according to their fame or their accomplishments with the examination of their private lives limited to exceptional anecdotes. Thus, most readers know George Washington Carver as merely the peanut product inventor and as a key faculty member of the Tuskeegee Institute. Poet Nelson challenges this typical biography format with her more deeply focused profile. Her collage of poems echoes the irregular regularity of Carver's life—the child of enslaved parents who was raised by a white couple, a chemist who loved flowers and nature, and a scientist with a contemplative spirit. A man who shunned high fashion, his clothing is described as neat but threadbare. Although the poems, written as observations and musings by those whose lives Carver touched, cannot be considered with the same credibility as a collection of primary sources, Nelson allows readers to see Carver as contemporaries might have seen him, with the "light of genius / through the dusky window of his skin." Footnote time lines and photographs of Carver and his effects fill in the barest facts of his life, framing the poems in a historic space. This poetry biography is not a choice for the fact-hunting student; however, it will captivate readers with its uncommon sensitivity and soul. Photos. Source Notes. VOYA CODES: 5Q 2P M J (Hard to imagine it being any better written; For the YA with a special interest in the subject; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2001, Front Street, 103p, $16.95. Ages 12 to 15. Reviewer: Amy S. Pattee SOURCE: VOYA, August 2001 (Vol. 24, No. 3)