In One Last Word, poet Nikki Grimes combines the work of the poets of the Harlem Renaissance such as Langston Hughes, Georgia Douglas Johnson and Jean Toomer with her own, creating fresh, original and relevant poems for today. She uses the “Golden Shovel” poetic form, a method that takes “a short poem in its entirety, or a line from that poem (called a striking line), and create a new poem, using the words from the original.”
According to Nikki, “This is a very challenging way to create a poem, especially in terms of coming up with something that makes sense, and I love it for that very reason! In this form, the poet is bound by the words of the original poem, but the possibilities for creating something entirely new are exciting.”
Powerful artwork from contemporary African American illustrators Cozbi Cabrera, R. Gregory Christie, Pat Cummings, Jan Spivey Gilchrist, Ebony Glenn, Nikki Grimes, E. B. Lewis, Frank Morrison, Christopher Myers, Brian Pinkney, Sean Qualls, James Ransome, Javaka Steptoe, Shadra Strickland and Elizabeth Zunon come alongside Nikki’s thought-provoking poems.
One Last Word: Wisdom from the Harlem Renaissance | Written by Nikki Grimes | @bloomsburypublishing