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28 Days of Poetry Celebrating Black History (Perfect Paperback)

by Latorial Faison (Author) "Celebrate to liberate, To vindicate, to educate..." (more)
Key Phrases: Charles Drew

4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description
28 Days of Poetry is an eclectic collection of poems celebrating the history and legacy of African-Americans. The book reflects on slavery, the civil rights movement and paints poetic pictures of the south during a time when America was a divided nation. Young readers will enjoy biographical poems that tell the history of black inventors and other civil rights leaders in history.

About the Author
Latorial Faison is a poet, author and publisher from Virginia. Faison's work has been published both nationally and internationally in various literary journals and magazines. She has also been published in the NAACP Image Award Winning essay collection by Tavis Smiley, Keeping the Faith. Faison teaches college English, is married, and has two sons.

Product Details

Perfect Paperback: 60 pages
Publisher: Cross Keys Press; 1st edition (February 7, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1598727737
ISBN-13: 978-1598727739
Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces

Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,372,571 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
Celebrate to liberate, To vindicate, to educate. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Charles Drew

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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews

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4.8 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 28 Days of Education & Revelation, March 21, 2007

By	Jennifer Lyre "JMagazine" (Santa Barbara, CA USA) - See all my reviews

I picked up this book for Black History Month. It's now March, and I'm still reading it and sharing it with friends and family. It gives you 28 Days of poetry reflecting on Black History in America in a fresh, new perspective. My young son found the biographical poems on Phillis Wheatley, Benjamin Banneker and others resourceful, and I was touched by this author's ability to capture history through poetry. It makes a great, brief read and a great resource for years to come. Black History is never ending, and that's what Faison illustrates here. A million days won't do justice to Black History. I'm giving this one as a gift!

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rhyming into the Past, April 18, 2007

By	Jennifer Coissiere (Georgia) - See all my reviews

Many times we try to find a way to remember important things that happened in the past; what better way than in verse? Latorial Faison's 28 Days of Poetry Celebrating Black History, helps to remind us of the important people that contributed to the African American history.

Each verse carried a piece of history, whether it was centuries ago, or a few years ago. Can you say that you know about Fatou, Benjamin Banneker, or Fredrick Douglass? After you read Faison, you can say that you do. The great thing about this selection of poetry is that it can be equally appreciated by children of all ages.

Faison's 28 Days of Poetry Celebrating Black History will give families something to enjoy together. I recommend this to anyone that really has a passion for poetry, and to parents that want to expose their children to new things and the people of African American history and poetry.

Jennifer Coissiere
APOOO BookClub

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Required Reading The Full Year 'Round, August 12, 2007

By	Apex Reviews (Durham, NC USA) - See all my reviews

We all know the familiar names: Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Frederick Douglass, Langston Hughes, all readily recognizable for the high profiles of their lives, as well as their contributions to the rich legacy of African-American culture. But, who can really say they know much about Charles Drew or Ossie Davis? Or just how much the Buffalo Soldiers really accomplished during their years of service?

28 Days Of Poetry is an impressive mosaic of the kaleidoscopic African-American experience. In it, Latorial Faison has breathed new life into the usual retellings of Black history that have often been reduced to quaint clich�s and trite sound bites. The breadth and depth of her compositions are so comprehensive that 28 Days can - and probably should - replace most of the textbooks and other outdated materials currently serving as ersatz representations of the American Black experience.

The broad-based appeal of 28 Days will certainly endear it to individuals from all walks of life, but the focus of most of Faison's offerings is clearly on the young. She repeatedly implores the leaders of tomorrow not only to remember the struggles of their forebears that forged the freedoms they currently enjoy, but also to continue the fight to preserve those freedoms for posterity's sake. Witness the second half of the poem "B.L.A.C.K. H.I.S.T.O.R.Y.":

"Hope ran through their veins
In search of rights and freedom trains
Sons and daughters still dying a million deaths
Trying to be free of the chains
Others pressed their way across the
Racial divide of prejudice and hate
Yesterday"

And this moving section of "Slave Questions":

"Why use the whip
And change my name,
Tell all the world
That I've been tamed?

Why teach me words
And give me things
But give me not
What freedom brings?"

Passages such as these should strike today's youth with the same conscientious impact that Alex Haley's ROOTS had on a generation of young viewers in the `70s.

Faison's opus is not just a treatise on cries in the night and cracks of the whip, though. She provides refreshing insight on the lesser known names of some our culture's greatest contributors, such as Phillis Wheatley and Charles Drew. Even the unsung inventor Benjamin Banneker gets the star treatment in "Who Was Benjamin Banneker?":

"If you visit the nation's capital
Or hold a watch in your hand
Think of Benjamin Banneker
Another great African American"

Such tributes serve as reassuring reminders of the towering giants on whose shoulders we stand.

But make no mistake: just as easily as Faison seeks to soothe, she also seeks to stir. Many of her pieces are brashly unapologetic, like this passage from "After Katrina":

"Horrific, embarrassing,
A travesty it is...
When a government waits
To aid its own citizens.

And where was America's
'Great White Hope'
Securing the Middle East
From dictatorship's scope"

Or this one from "Irreconcilable Differences":

With their played out and pimped out politics
Washington is filled with a sad lot of lunatics
So I speak to and preach to my fellowmen
About the need to politically be "born again"

Polemic stances such as these, of course, won't surprise anyone familiar with Faison's other works - namely her contributions to the anti-war (Iraq) movement, "Poets Against The War." In fact, many of the pieces in 28 Days can easily serve as revolutionary fodder in their own right. Consider this passage from "A Slave's Revolt," detailing Nat Turner's insurrection of 1831:

"they bled a dark people of life running through
their veins, mocked them with husbands, wives, and
mulatto baby cries until it was, to no surprise,
a justified rebellion, a righteous revolt, a song
of silent amen's."

At its heart, 28 Days Of Poetry bravely continues the ongoing task of reminding us all that African-American history and American history are one and the same, conveyed most effectively in these lines taken from the opening poem, "Celebrate":

"Acknowledge Black history on any day.
Allow freedom to ring in the noblest way."

While she may only have intended for it to be celebrated during Black History Month, Faison's collection is a treasure that MUST be hailed every day of the year.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Say it loud...
28 DAYS OF POETRY CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY, reminds me of a Reader's Digest version of a stirring novel. Read more

Published 23 months ago by The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

5.0 out of 5 stars 28 Of The Best Days Of My Life . . .
Hi Reader! I wrote 28 Days of Poetry Celebrating Black History because our children need to know so much about the past in order to move forward into the future. Read more

Published on April 30, 2007 by Latorial Faison

5.0 out of 5 stars I could not put this book down.
I too am an author who likes to write poetry about Black History and I could not put this book down. It even taught me a few things. Read more

Published on April 28, 2007 by Linda Mayfield-Hayes

› See all 6 customer reviews...

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