I love Nikki Grimes' poetry. In this book, she starts out giving us a bit of history about the impact African American women have made on the world of poetry. It has just been in the last couple of years that we have started seeing some of their poetry in our Language Arts books in school. We read poetry by Langston Hughes all the time, and have for years. Nikki's book is divided into three sections: Heritage, Earth Mother, and Taking Notice. Each section has twelve to fifteen poems. If you are not familiar with this author's writing style she writes something called golden shovel poems. This is not something she invented. A golden shovel poem as she explains in her book goes something like this.
Find a poem that speaks to you. Copy it down. Then choose a line that speaks to you or the whole poem. Write it one word at a time down the right had side of the paper. Create your poem in front of it so that the last word of the line is the word from the other poem. When I first introduce my students to these they moan and groan because they are difficult. At the end of the unit when they write about the book of poetry they have written the majority tell me their favorite style to write was the Golden Shovel poem. One of the reasons is because the punctuation can often end up in the middle of a line. When I exaplained that to my students one spoke up and said, "It seems that with poetry, we should have the right to do it the way we want and put punctuation where we want, so this just makes sense." Yes it does. This was a child who told me up front they would create the book of poetry for the grade, but they hated poetry. When they wrote their final page of their book reflecting on their poetry they deicded they liked it because they could write what they wanted and express themselves. Mission accomplished. ( )

Legacy: Women Poets of the Harlem Renaissance, written by Nikki Grimes. This book of poems celebrates female poets from the Harlem Renaissance with a modern twist that will catch the eye of young adult readers. Grimes has revisited these unsung writers, able to express themselves through art for the first time without fear, after the great migration to the North escaping racial discrimination. Grimes takes poems and uses the “golden shovel” method of poetry, to borrow a line (from the great poets of the past) and create a new poem by extending that line vertically, marking each word at the end of each line in a brand-new contemporary poem. This colorful book has beautiful illustrations by different African-American artists to add even greater depth of feeling to the writing. Grimes honors each writer, creates something new, and celebrates with art and free expression our American history. The poems celebrate a way to learn from the past and to draw strength from those who came before. These poems can be shared with young adult audiences where students can exercise choosing a poem and writing their own using the same form and structure. The skillfully crafted art and poems can’t help but attract attention to celebrate and explore history, while simultaneously using a well-developed take on reinventing lines to a see a modern time.

Using the "golden shovel” poetic form, author Nikki Grimes, takes a favorite line from a poem and creates an original poem. Each word of the favorite line is kept in order and becomes the last word in each sentence. Nikki Grimes used this method to create a beautiful complication of original work inspired by female poets of the Harlem Renaissance. Each poem is paired with a full color illustration created by Black women artists. It is a beautiful and engaging compilation. ( )

Powerful and complete. ( )