April is National Poetry Month! All month long we’ll be celebrating by posting some of our favorite poems for Poetry Friday. For our second Poetry Friday post, we chose Family Garden by Francisco Alarcón, illustrated by Paula Barragán from Poems to Dream Together/Poemas para soñar juntos.
Family Garden
in the backyard/of our home/there is a garden
all in our family/do our part/in maintaining
Mamá loves/to plant and nip/flowery rosebushes
Abuelita keeps/her mint herbs/in a small pot
Papá really likes/to come out hose/in hand and water
the lemon tree/the squashes/and the tomatoes
that my sisters/would grow/every spring
my brothers and I/in turn weed out/and mow the lawn
all in our family/take time to tend/each other’s dreams
even our puppy/knows how/to grow bones
in this garden/the sun shines/green smiles
What poems is everyone else reading? Feel free to share in the comments section!
Everyone knows Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr., but there are many other African Americans who have contributed to the rich fabric of our country but whose names have fallen through the cracks of history.
We’ve asked some of our authors who chose to write biographies of these talented leaders why we should remember them. We’ll feature their answers throughout Black History Month.
Today, Alan Schroeder shares why he wrote about Florence Mills in Baby Flo: Florence Mills Lights Up the Stage:
While researching African-American life, I have come across the name Florence Mills time and again. She was a famous singer and dancer in the 1920s, but not much is known about her today. She is a “forgotten” celebrity. Then, a few years ago, a man named Bill Egan wrote a marvelous biography of Mills, which I happened to read. Thanks to Mr. Egan, Mills’s incredible career sprang to life, and I knew I wanted to write about her — to share her story with young readers.
Unlike Booker T. Washington or Frederick Douglass or Martin Luther King, Jr., Florence Mills is not an important figure in American or African-American life. Children do not need to know about her in the way that they should know about Douglass or King, or Cesar Chavez, or Harvey Milk. Nevertheless, her story was interesting, and her hard work and many accomplishments can, I think, serve as an inspiration to young readers. In an amazingly short time, Florence Mills rose to the very top of her profession, and I had a wonderful time researching and writing about her.
Further reading:
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Holidays Tagged:
African American history,
African American interest,
african american women,
baby flo,
black history month,
dancing,
dreams &,
florence mills,
inspiration,
performing
[...] Black History Month: Why Remember Florence “Baby Flo” Mills? [...]