Today, my long-overdue revue of J. Patrick Lewis's marvelous collection, When Thunder Comes: Poems for Civil Rights Leaders, which is illustrated by five different artists: Jim Burke, R. Gregory Christie, Tonya Engel, John Parra, and Meilo So. (My apologies to the illustrators for not including them in the subject line as is my usual practice, but it got a bit unwieldy, I'm afraid.)
Pat Lewis has provided eighteen poems in this book: an introductory sonnet (using the Shakespearean format) that begins as follows:
The poor and dispossessed take up the drums
For civil rights--freedoms to think and speak,
Petition, pray, and vote. When thunder comes,
The civil righteous are finished being meek.
The seventeen people profiled in the book range from well-known civil rights activists such as Mohandas Gandhi, Coretta Scott King, and Nelson Mandela to lesser-known people, including Mitsuye Endo, who fought against Japanese internment in the United States during World War II, and Dennis James Banks, co-founder of the American Indian Movement, who fought for Native American rights in the U.S. Both the dead (e.g., Mamie Carthan Till, mother of young Emmett Till, and baseball players Josh Gibson and Jackie Robinson) and the living (e.g., Nobel Peace Prize winners Aung San Suu Kyi and Muhammad Yunus) are included.
Here is the two-page spread for "The Statesman", a poem about the long captivity of Nelson Mandela, now the former President of South Africa, illustrated by Jim Burke:
The poem is a sonnet, written using a Petrarchan scheme (ABBA CDDC EFFE GG):
The Statesman
by J. Patrick Lewis
It is as if he's landed on the moon
Five years before the actual event.
At Robben Island Prison, his descent
Into a nightmare world, an outcast dune,
Begins at forty-six. His fate derails.
There are no clocks, his life's defined by bell
And whistle, sisal mats (no beds), his cell
Is seven feet square. But destiny prevails.
He keeps for an eternity of years
His keepers, not the other way around,
Marked by a calm refinement so profound
As to alleviate his captors' fears.
He said, once they had turned the jailhouse key,
No man will rob me of my dignity.
One of my favorite poems in the book is the one about Harvey Milk, who was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in the state of California, back in the 1970s. Although the poem does not mention it, Milk was shot and killed while still in office. The spread is illustrated by Meilo So.
The Crusader
by J. Patrick Lewis
I knew my rights meant nothing.
I kept them out of sight.
Seen and heard when the sun went down,
hidden in harsh daylight.
Then Liberation called one day
and asked would I consent
to tell the world that I was proud
of being different.
I took the fight to the city fathers.
They scolded me for that:
We don’t approve of boys who wear
an unconventional hat.
So I became a city father
to break the laws that kept
boys and girls from living lives
that Life would not accept.
They say I came before my time
but who else would redress
unmitigated suffering due
to such small-mindedness?
This book is perfect for discussion during February, which is African American History Month, or March, which is Women's History Month, but truly, it's perfect for reading year-round, and a must-buy for middle school libraries everywhere (in my opinion, of course).
You can read a great interview with Pat about this book over at
Chronicle Books's website. My thanks to Chronicle for sending me a review copy of this wonderful, wonderfully important work.
By Alice Northover
It’s Friday once more and I’m holed up in my snow-proof bunker anticipating Nemo — both the storm and the movie.
Readers browsing through the damaged library of Holland House in West London, wrecked by a bomb on 22 October 1940.
The University of North Carolina’s Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library is publishing one piece of Civil War-era correspondence a day, 150 years to the day after it was written.
Academic reference inflation has set in.
The Millions has their first original ebook.
Music at New York Fashion Week.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Tracking people across security cameras today and forensic science of the Victorian era.
Bookish has finally launched and reaction is mixed.
Why aren’t academics tweeting? Not for the reasons you think.
Sir James may be number 1 in our estimation at the OED, but Google ranks him second to "Councilman #1" on Being Human. http://t.co/9bipfnCP .
The thriving academic blogosphere.
Why isn’t there cocaine in Coke anymore?
Click here to view the embedded video.
Timbuktu’s priceless manuscripts saved.
Agatha Christie was investigated by MI5 over Bletchley Park mystery.
Clocks!
Teaching tips from Tim Gunn.
A Russian family cut off from the world for 40 years.
Sally Tomlinson’s life as a woman professor.
Alice Northover joined Oxford University Press as Social Media Manager in January 2012. She is editor of the OUPblog, constant tweeter @OUPAcademic, daily Facebooker at Oxford Academic, and Google Plus updater of Oxford Academic, amongst other things. You can learn more about her bizarre habits on the blog.
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There is a deep and pervasive hunger for a less fragmented and more integrated way of understanding and inhabiting the world. What must change if we are to live in a sustainable relationship with other organisms? What role do our moral and spiritual values play in responding to the ecological crisis? We sat down with Douglas E. Christie, author of The Blue Sapphire of the Mind, to discuss a contemplative approach to ecological thought and practice that can help restore our sense of the earth as a sacred place.
What is the blue sapphire of the mind?
It is an image used by Evagrius of Pontus, a fourth century Christian monk, to describe the condition of the mind transformed by contemplative practice: it is pure and endless and serene, capable of seeing and experiencing union with everything and everyone.
What is “contemplative ecology” and what does it have to do with this idea?
Contemplative ecology has two distinct but related meanings. First, it refers to a particular way of thinking about and engaging ecological concerns, rooted in a distinctive form of contemplative spiritual practice. Second, it refers to a particular way of thinking about spiritual practice, one that understands the work of transforming awareness as leading toward and including a deepened understanding of the intricate relationships among and between all living beings. The underlying concern is to find new ways of thinking about the meaning and significance of the relationship between ecological concern and contemplative spiritual practice, that can help to ground sustained care for the environment in a deep feeling for the living world.
What possible meaning do you think such a contemplative approach can have in an age of massive and growing environmental degradation?
Contemplative traditions of spiritual practice, including those grounded in monastic forms of living, have long occupied the margins of mainstream society. The work of such communities is often hidden from view. Because of this, their contributions to work of social and political transformation can seem, on the face of it, negligible. But a careful examination of the historical record suggests that such communities have contributed and continue to contribute significantly to the project of cultural, social and even political renewal — primarily through their unwavering commitment to uncovering the deepest sources of our bonds with one another and with the living world. In our own moment of ecological and political crisis, these traditions of contemplative thought and practice can help to awaken in us a new awareness of the deepest sources of our shared concern for the world.
Is this a matter of particular concern to religious communities?
Yes, and no. Certainly, environmental degradation is a concern that religious communities around the world are waking up to in a new way, and this includes the particular contributions of monastic communities. But the distinctively contemplative dimension of this renewal transcends religion (at least in narrow terms) and touches on a wider and more fundamental human concern: to truly know ourselves as part of the rich web of life. Contemplative ecology addresses anyone who wishes to think more deeply and carefully about what it is to be alive and attentive to the natural world, and to respond with care and affection.
Douglas E. Christie is Professor of Theological Studies, Loyola Marymount University, and the author of The Blue Sapphire of the Mind: Notes for a Contemplative Ecology and The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism.
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Image credit: Dissolving fractured head. Photo by morkeman, iStockphoto.
The post Douglas Christie on contemplative ecology appeared first on OUPblog.
What an excellent review, Kelly! I especially like that you are suggesting this book for middle school--there are lots of great poems here for sharing aloud and starting discussions. I had been thinking of this as a book for 3rd-5th grades, but was probably limiting it to those grades simply because of the fact that it is illustrated. (I'll tear those limits down in my mind right now!)