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A Wreath for Emmett Till (Boston Globe-Horn Book Honors (Awards))

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I cannot recall if back in 1968 my eighth-grade American history teacher Mrs. Auryansen taught us about the death of Emmett Till. But one of the things I loved most about that year of studying with an enthusiastic teacher who often made American history come alive for me was the series of quarterly independent projects we had to plan and complete. Each marking period we would have to do an American history-related visual piece as well as a written piece and an oral piece.

"BY the flow of the inland river,
Whence the fleets of iron have fled,
Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver,
Asleep are the ranks of the dead:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the one, the Blue,
Under the other, the Gray."
Whence the fleets of iron have fled,
Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver,
Asleep are the ranks of the dead:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the one, the Blue,
Under the other, the Gray."

That's the first of the seven verses of "The Blue and The Gray" by Francis Miles Finch (1827-1907). I memorized and proudly recited those seven verses to my American history class, and that memory has stuck with me.

Having just celebrated my personal half-century mark, I'm all for turning around and returning to eighth-grade. And if I could do so, this is what I would memorize this time around for one of my oral pieces:

"Pierced by the screams of a shortened childhood,
my heartwood has been scarred for fifty years
by what I heard, with hundreds of green ears.
That jackal laughter. Two hundred years I stood
listening to small struggles to find food,
to the songs of creature life, which disappears
and comes again, to the music of the spheres.
Two hundred years of deaths I understood.
Then slaughter axed one quiet summer night,
shivering the deep silence of the stars.
A running boy, five men in close pursuit.
One dark, five pale faces in the moonlight.
Noise, silence, back-slaps. One match, five cigars.
Emmett Till's name still catches in the throat."

That is one of the fifteen sonnets that comprises A WREATH FOR EMMETT TILL by Marilyn Nelson. After reading the book to myself and then reading it aloud to Shari, my thoughts kept wandering off yesterday to brainstorming how I might somehow set up an event down in the City on Sunday, August 28th--fifty years to the day since Emmett was kidnapped--in which someone who would both have known the Civil Rights movement and whose presence could attract a major audience (a Danny Glover or a Bill Russell or someone else of that stature) would read this powerful series of poems aloud to a crowd to commemorate the anniversary of the brutal death of Emmett Till, a death which horrified the world and made clear what had gone on for so long.

I can imagine having a choir and soloist perform at such an event, but definitely not a bunch of droning speakers whose verbosity might take away from the carefully chosen words of Marilyn Nelson's heroic crown of sonnets about Emmett Till. As Marilyn explains in her preface (HOW I CAME TO WRITE THIS POEM):

"A crown of sonnets is a sequence of interlinked sonnets in which the last line of one becomes the first line, sometimes slightly altered, of the next. A heroic crown of sonnets is a sequence of fifteen interlocking sonnets, in which the last one is made up of the first lines of the preceeding fourteen."

Thus, it's like a literary crossword puzzle. Get one word wrong and it simply doesn't fit together. Get all the words exactly right and you've got something worthy of public performances by famous personalities and recitations by today's and tomorrow's American history students.

Marilyn Nelson got it right.

A Wreath for Emmett Till is my first encounter with Marilyn Nelson; a bittersweet introduction. As a member of the Sisters~Nineties Literary Group, this book fascinates me as it is a beautiful example of poetic mastery. When our editor gives us a writing assignment for our publication, I grumble and protest, then I revel in the experience; delighting in the success of learning about the world of poetry and all its various forms. The "sankofet," created by Debra Morrowloving Sisters~Nineties founder, comes to mind as I read this book.*

Ms. Nelson's rhyme scheme is a fourteen-line sonnet on each page linking the previous poem with the next as the last line of the previous poem is the first line of the next poem on the following page. In the world of poetry, this is known as a "crown of sonnets."

Although written for children, I had to read the book twice to "feel" the horrible images that this book so beautifully captures. References to flower, plants, and trees are symbolic and make up the "wreath" for Emmett.
Please read this book and share the experience with your children. The incident is described as the motivating force of the Civil Rights Movement. It is also a wake-up call to all those who continue to live a life of apathy and denial when it comes to standing up for the legacy of the African American struggle.

*Sankofet is a poetic form of three stanzas, each with seven lines. The fourth line of each stanza is the same. The last word of each stanza is the first word of the subsequent verse, and the last line of a Sankofet is the first line in the poem. The format of the Sankofet emulates the call-and-response motif of Afrikan musical tradition with the repetition of the fourth lines. The connecting words at the beginning and end of the stanzas represent the Afrikan cycle of life concept.

This book is in the form of a Heroic Sonnet is a brilliantly written book. It is about giving a wreath to Emmett Till, a young child who was lynched after whistling at a white woman. Till, who normally lived in Chicago, was spending the time at his uncle for the summer. After whistling at a white woman, Briant, Milan and a third person kidnapped Emmett Till. Soon after the kidapping, they lynched him. Later in the Trial, Briant and Milan were found not guilty, though later, it was proven they were guilty. This book was brilliantly written into a heroic sonnet, each of the first lines stating: R.I.P. EMMETT L. TILL. It got me emotionally connected, displeased by the racism people had back then (i.e. allowing Briant and Millan the right to be not guilty just because Till was Black). This book was brilliantly written through the use of similies. It allowed you to invision the racism back then. The only comment I have against it is the World Trade Center reference, mentioning 9/11 hadn't happened yet. Other than that, A Wreath for Emmet Till by Marilyn Nelsen was an excellent work of poetry.

This book is not of the whimsical, happy-go-lucky poetry most Americans (especially public school students) have become accustomed to. I believe 1 of the reviewers misses the point. In particular when she states that Emmett's murder is "loosely" tied to the 9/11 event by the author. Well, some of us Americans, do in fact, equate the many acts of violence perpetrated against Blacks, from slavery to Jim Crow and on, as some of the first acts of terrorism committed on American soil, so I beg to differ. Being an American of African descent, I do understand the connection. The sonnets are presented as a journey deep into the atrocities and the realities often hidden by the U.S. educational agenda-- is this perhaps the reason why some seem a bit threatened by their content? It is a critical history but also a presentation of hope for us all. As other reviewers have, I recommend it to be used in school curriculum (public, private etc.) and dissected - word by word if necessary. The truth of American history, the good with the bad, must be peeled back, layer by layer and examined WITH A CRITICAL EYE, if we are truly ever going to learn to live and work together with respect, honor and appreciation of our differences.

Just not what I thought it was. My fault, I should have read the description more carefully.

Emmett Till, a fourteen year old African American, was a victim of the racial violence during the 1940s. Emmett was accused of whistled at a white woman. Four days later, he was brutally beaten, shot in the head, and thrown into the Tallahatchie River with a cotten gin fan tied to his neck with barbed wire. Less than an hour of consulting, the murderers were found not guilty by an all white male jury. The inhumaan nature of this crime and the lack of a guilty verdict outraged both the black and white communities in the United States. The death of Emmett Till helped lead to the civil rights movement.
Marilyn Nelson tells the story of Emmett Till in the form of a heroic crown of sonnets. The detestable act of lynching is presented in this beautiful presentation, almost as if it were for Emmett Till himself. The short lines are filled with powerful emotion, and the interlinking sonnets keep the reader flipping the page to read on. For the young adult audience, sonnet notes are provided at the end of the book to add some clearity. Marilyn Nelson's _A_Wreath_for_Emmett_Till_ received a Coretta Scott King Award Honor, as well as a Michael L. Printz Award Honor.

The tragic story of the death of Emmett Till, Jr. in 1955 is one that plays a large part in the Civil Rights movement. Till, then 14 a Chicagoan was visiting relatives in the South. He said "hi, baby" to a woman who was white. The hue and cry was fierce; how dare this child talk to someone who was not of the same race?

To make matters worse, a posse was formed and Till as well as his cousin were roused from their beds and taken from the house they were in. Emmett Till, Jr. was beaten to death.

What makes this child's tragic death a turning point was that Till's mother had his funeral televised with an open casket. The world at large would see just what bigotry, ignorance and hatred was capable of and of one young casualty it claimed. Till's mother, who died in 2003 never stopped beating on the drum for her only child and for an end to cruelty and bigotry. Hers was a voice that was heard by people such as President Johnson (1963-68); Attorney General and later Senator Robert Kennedy; Martin Luther King and countless others. To this day I cannot watch that funeral dry eyed; the thought of the anguish this child's mother endurned for the remainder of her life is just....painful.

Emmett Till Jr.'s death, which took place some 10 years before Bloody Sunday aka March 7, 1965 was a touchstone event. In looking at the Civil War Movement; the riots; the efforts of many to secure fair and equal treatment for ALL individuals can look toward Emmett Till, Jr. as an unlikely martyr. This child's needless death, horrible as it was did call attention to similar racist-based atrocities being committed.

As heinous and atrocious the injustice to this child was, Marilyn Nelson offsets the horror with some beautiful poetry. The rhythm and flow of the words and the idyllic images contained in some of the sonnets stand in stark contrast to the ugly, leering head of Jim Crow and the Racist Regime that flourished.

A fellow teacher is doing a unit on African-American lit and the Civil Rights Movement as a lead-in to Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird". "A Wreath for Emmett Till" was one of the books she shared with the class. I have perused it myself, still unsure whether I should actually purchase it or not. Two things other reviewers have mentioned that I too find appealing about the book are: 1)The sheer complexity of constructing a heroic crown of sonnets and 2)the historical backdrop of the events described. Unfortunately, these aspects have very little to do with the content of the poems themselves. Most of the information about Till is contained in the preface and afterword, not in the poems themselves. Likewise, others reviewers, like I, praise Nelson for giving a tour-de-force in making a heroic crown of sonnets (and her commentaries about the sonnets were enlightening), but to be honest, the poems themselves were not particularly outstanding. I would buy the book more as an example of the structure and form of poetry rather than as an example of good poetry (If that makes sense).

This ambitious poetry book is based on a little known poetic style known as a crown of sonnets, used historically to honor great kings. In this unique book, author Marilyn Nelson tries to apply it to an ordinary kid named Emmett Till whose name became household when he was brutally lynched, and outrage over his murder fueled the early flames of the black civil rights movement.

Nelson is admirable to tackle such a brutal and tough subject matter, however admiration is not enough to cover the fact that her poems are often hard to follow due to the ridged style, in addition to being tangential and lacking in any strong dramatic or emotional punch. She writes about Till's murder as she would weave it into a floral wreath, and sometimes that leaves the reader bored and wondering why we should even care about Nelson's pretty flowers. Her stated goal is to write about Till but he rarely makes an actual appearance in these poems, and her attempt to tie his murder into a larger history of lynching is poorly executed. At one point she ties Till's murder to the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, which comes out extremely contrived and tacked on, since the events, issues, emotions, and circumstances are completely different. She expands considerable ink wishing he had never been killed, which although very admirable, doesn't give her much space to explore the national impact of his death or the good that grew out of his tragedy. In addition, her lengthy and complex notes at the end of the book are absolutely necessary to understand her many intellectual allusions and symbols. I could not imagine giving this book to anyone under 16 and having them get it at all - I'm finishing my undergrad in two weeks and I was overwhelmed. While the poems pick up pathos towards the end, it really is not enough to save the whole set.

The illustrations by Philippe Lardy are nice but unremarkable, and given the poignant and brutal subject matter they are severely disappointing. Many of them are simplistic and pretty paintings of flowers and birds that fit the wreath theme but entirely loose the tragedy and power of Till's death. Like Nelson's poems, you need the complex notes at the back of the book to understand the many symbols in the oft-abstract illustrations. Emmett Till himself is only shown once, and the artist attempts to make him look like an EveryChild (even to the point of giving him no real facial expressions) which makes him look generic and dull. The art shines best when it is the most simple, such as when it is a textured background for the text itself, with simple shapes instead of complex allegories. When the best thing you can say about the illustrations is that they make nice and non-imposing backgrounds, you know the art is in trouble.

A Wreath for Emmett Till asks the reader to "bear witness to the atrocity" and take responsibility for this murder in our collective memory, but otherwise is not a call to any action or awareness. Unfortunately what sticks in the memory is a book that falls short of its lofty goals.