Poetry Uplifts Us All

By Kwame Alexander

When I was three years old, my Dad took me to a basketball court and told me to make a free throw. The playground supervisor came over and wanted to lower the hoop, saying to my Dad, “Your son can’t make it.” My Dad said, “He doesn’t know he can’t make it.” The takeaway is to never let other people lower your goals. Always shoot for the sun and eventually you will shine.

I’m a huge fan of jazz music. When I started writing Acoustic Rooster my daughter was 1 year old and I had been laid off from my job. I was at home with her and in an effort to get her to stop crying I would play music on the record player. The music would range from hip-hop to country but none of that seemed to work - none of that seemed to soothe her. When I played Ella Fitzgerald singing “I Got You Under My Skin” and “With a Song In My Heart,” she stopped crying and her eyes got big. I played some Billie Holiday some Miles Davis, and it was apparent that the jazz music really did the trick. Whenever I am working on a book, I listen to jazz. Music is that thing that keeps me inspired on a soul level, and I guess it worked with her.

Jazz is America’s first music — it’s a bona fide American creation. I like to think it’s a metaphor that we can all learn from. There are all these musicians on stage at the same time and they all work together to create this beautiful sound. Given time, everyone has their opportunity to solo, to shine, and everyone else takes a step back and lets that person do their thing and supports them. How great would it be if that is how we lived our lives, giving everyone their opportunity to shine?

I listen to young people. I speak at schools a lot and I listen to them, I hear them, and I know what they are going through. I want to give them a platform and I want to help them find their voices so that they can speak up for themselves. My novel in verse, The Crossover, was rejected 22 times because publishers didn’t think that boys would read a book of poems or that girls would read a book about basketball. It went on to win the Newbery Medal. So, I don’t spend a whole lot of time looking at what the media is doing. I spend a lot more time trying to change the narrative, trying to make sure I’m doing it.

Poetry is a way for us to be uplifted. To be reminded of the things that matter – family, love, community, hope, possibility. That was the motivation behind This is the Honey: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets. We often think about Black history in terms of the woe, and not the wonder. We think about the tragedy and not the triumph. That’s all valuable, but I wanted to create a book that reminded us of all the beautiful things, of the regular, normal things. And remind not only Black people, but Americans in general, that Black people live, love, hope, dream, dance, smile, eat just like everybody else. Poetry is a way to open a door to possibility. No matter who is writing, whether it’s Mary Oliver or Nikki Giovanni, whether it’s Pablo Neruda or Kwame Alexander. Poetry is a way for us to connect with each other to feel more empathetic, and ultimately to become better human beings. My books are for you, for me, for us.

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Bryans, J. K. Shadowkids. Illustrated by Bryans. Platt & Munk Co., 1929 (excerpt)