Poetry holds a special place in my heart. Admittedly, I was a reluctant lover of verse, but my personal path to poetry has mirrored my entire homeschooling journey, and I continue to mature in both as the years go on. Though we have studied and loved a wide variety of poems, the ones we return to most often are those that celebrate or highlight various aspects of my family’s lived experiences and heritage.

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If you’ve been following me for a while, you may already know that my most cherished volume of children’s poetry is Gladiola Garden by Effie Lee Newsome. I can’t even express how much I love it, but it is certainly not the only beautiful poetry book we use. There are many poets who have made themselves at home at our dining room table, and I’m excited to share just a few of them with you here. And as an added bonus, many of the poetry books we love feature beautiful art from some of the most acclaimed African American artists.

Langston Hughes

Harlem Renaissance poet, Langston Hughes, is perhaps the most well-known among the Black poets featured on this list. Poetry for Young People: Langston Hughes is the fist book we used when studying his work, and we read it along with Coming Home: From the Life of Langston Hughes for an overview of his childhood. I, Too, Am America and That Is My Dream! are picture books celebrating two of Hughes’ most well-known poems. I purchased them to add to our collection because we love his work so much, but these would also be good ones to check out of the library as they can be read in a single sitting.

Lullaby (For a Black Mother) is one of my favorite books to include with baby shower gifts, so I included it here just as a little bonus for my mama friends.

The Dream Keeper and Other Poems was the last book we read during our Langston Hughes study, and I chose it because of the black and white Brian Pinkney illustrations that accompany the poems. We love his other books and knew we would enjoy viewing his work in this one as well. I don’t own it yet, but The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes is next on my list. It contains all 800+ poems that Langston Hughes published during his lifetime, arranged in the general order in which he wrote them. It’s definitely a must-have for me.

And though I know this post is about children’s books, The Big Sea: An Autobiography is a bonus book that interested me after we studied Hughes. It’s his autobiography of which Arnold Rampersad said, “This is American writing at its best–simpler than Hemingway; as simple and direct as that of another Missouri-born writer…Mark Twain.” I haven’t completed it because my reading time is fragmented among so many other books, but it’s definitely one to check out.

Maya Angelou

Another poet we’ve enjoyed is Maya Angelou. Known and loved by so many, she holds a special place in my heart because I had the honor of having dinner in her home years ago when I lived in North Carolina after grad school. She had a dinner party, and I’m sure you can imagine my complete shock and delight when we ended up at the same table for the evening! I knew that I wanted my children to come to love her, and we started the relationship with Poetry for Young People: Maya Angelou.

She wrote many autobiographies, but the one that made her most famous was I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. It’s an incredibly honest and poignant look at her childhood, but because it details some mature topics, including the sexual abuse she endured, I’m holding off on sharing it with my children until they’re older. Maya Angelou (yellow cover below) is a great introduction to her life for younger children. I know some parents don’t love the Who Was series, but Who Was Maya Angelou? is the best biography I’ve found to fill the space between Maya Angelou and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem and Life Doesn’t Frighten Me are picture books depicting two of Angelou’s poems with the latter illustrated by the late Jean-Michel Basquiat. Be sure to check out the image previews on Amazon before purchasing Life Doesn’t Frighten Me because even though the premise is not to be afraid, the pictures themselves may be scary for some kiddos.

The audiobook And Still I Rise with Angelou reading her own book of verse is awe-inspiring, and Pocket Maya Angelou Wisdom: Inspirational Quotes and Wise Words from a Legendary Icon is just a beautiful book to own. It’s chock-full of her famous gems.

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.

– Maya Angelou

Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brooks, who won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1950, was the Poet Laureate of Illinois from 1968 until her death in 2000. Because I grew up there, her work was known to me as a child and has been a bright spot to share with my own children. I even named one of my kiddos after her! My children are being raised in Georgia, but my husband and I are Midwesterners through and through, so I love that I can tie some of their studies back to my own heritage – including my home state.

Bronzeville Boys and Girls includes thirty-four poems Brooks wrote to celebrate the joy, beauty, imagination, and freedom of children who live together in an urban neighborhood. We paired it with Exquisite: The Poetry and Life of Gwendolyn Brooks which is a beautifully illustrated book that I’m so happy to have on our shelves. “It follows Gwendolyn from early girlhood into her adult life, showcasing her desire to write poetry from a very young age. This picture-book biography explores the intersections of race, gender, and the ubiquitous poverty of the Great Depression—all with a lyrical touch worthy of the subject.” I was introduced to A Song for Gwendolyn Brooks by a friend on Instagram, and we enjoyed every bit of it over a series of mornings accompanied by warm bowls of oatmeal. These three books bring together a very sweet study on one of my favorite poets.

Selected Poems: Gwendolyn Brooks is her most classic volume of poetry, and I handpicked poems from it to share with my children. It’s a great option for studying with older children, especially those who have studied or are studying the Civil Rights Movement.

Poetry Collections

When we’re not studying a particular poet, I like to pull from poetry collections that carry us across poets and over time to give an expanded view of the Black poetry. I, Too, Sing America is a unique collection of 36 poems (perfect for three terms of weekly tea time!) spanning three centuries of writing in our country. What I appreciate the most about this collection is the variety of styles, tone, and topics carried across the works of 25 different poets, including some who are still living. I think this is important because our children have the opportunity to cultivate relationships with living poets who can inspire them in special ways. Stephen Alcorn’s illustrations will illicit their own conversations as they’re different than anything else we’ve encountered; you just can’t look away from the page.

Words With Wings is another wonderful collection of African American poetry that can carry you through a term or two of poetry teatime. There are only twenty poems in this book, but they are each paired with twenty works of art by acclaimed African American artists, making it a special two-for-one extravaganza of verse combined with Black art.

Before you even click on it, I want to acknowledge that Golden Slippers costs a million dollars, but I paid $9 for it not so long ago so you never know. Just keep an eye on it. It’s an anthology of poetry compiled by Harlem Renaissance writer, Arna Bontemps, who was good friends with Langston Hughes. It contains quite a bit of poetry written in dialect, so consider this a heads up if you’re not into that. I love it though so I had to include it here because it’s such a classic.

Poetry Remixes

These titles are completely different than our typical poetry books. They each have a distinctive twist that made me raise an eyebrow with the first encounter.

In One Last Word, Nikki Grimes uses “The Golden Shovel” poetic method to create “wholly original poems based on the works of master poets like Langston Hughes, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Jean Toomer, and others who enriched history during this era.” Basically, she takes a short poem or a line from a poem and creates a new poem using the words from the original. I had never heard of this writing technique, and I couldn’t put the book down when we first got it. It’s really a masterpiece. And much like Words With Wings above, the poems are matched with art from some of today’s most intriguing African American artists.

Legacy: Women Poets of the Harlem Renaissance is Nikki Grimes’ next installment of poetry using The Golden Shovel method. It will be available in January 2021, so I don’t own it yet…but I will. I can’t pass up an opportunity to celebrate the “gifted, prolific, women poets of the Harlem Renaissance who are little known, especially as compared to their male counterparts.”

Newberry Award winner, Kwame Alexander, built Out of Wonder around a totally different concept. In this book, he and his co-authors share their original poems paying respect to the poets they love most, often incorporating the style of the original poet into the new work. All of the inspirational poets are not Black – Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson are just two of those they pay homage to in verse – but that’s what makes this book so special. It’s the “coming together” and admiration of poets across time and culture to celebrate the greatest among them all. So beautiful.

Allow me to introduce you to twenty of my favorite poets. Poets who have inspired me and my co-authors with their words and their lives. They can do the same for you. Some of the poets we celebrate in this book lived centuries ago and wrote in languages other than English, while others still walk the streets of San Antonio and New York City today. Chris Colderley, Marjory Went-worth, and I had two requirements for the poets we would celebrate in Out of Wonder: first, they had to be interesting people, and second, we had to be passionately in love with their poetry. Mission accomplished.

A Note from Kwame Alexander

Nikki Giovanni

Spin a Soft Black Song, Hip Hop Speaks to Children, and Grandfathers are volumes of poetry written by Nikki Giovanni – an iconic African American poet. Giovanni calls herself, “a Black American, a daughter, a mother, a professor of English,” but to the Black community she is also a hero – one of the world’s most well-known African-American poets. She has written other children’s poetry, and I’m sure all of it is great, but I’m sharing these because they are the ones I’m familiar with.

Spin a Soft Black Song features “thirty-five poems for and about black children–written from their perspective–celebrating the energy and joy of young life within their own communities,” and the black and white drawings bring life to each page.

Hip Hop Speaks to Children: A Celebration of Poetry With a Beat is such a fun book. It shows children (and adults too!) how much poetry and rhythm are integrated into hip hop, and how much the popular artists of today were inspired by the great artists of yesterday.

The included CD includes over 30 performances where you can hear “poetry’s rhymes and rhythms from Queen Latifah to Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes to A Tribe Called Quest and more! Also hear part of Martin Luther Kind’s original “I Have a Dream” speech, followed by the remarkable live performance of the speech by Nikki Giovanni, Oni Lasana and Val Gray Ward.” Some of the recordings feature the artists who created them and others are unique interpretations by other admiring poets and artists.

Grand Fathers: Reminiscences, Poems, Recipes, and Photos of the Keepers of Our Traditions just sounds incredible. My father died a few weeks after my oldest was born, so none of my children knew him, and this book is just one of the things I’ve added to our “treasury” library (books I plan to keep forever) to show them a glimpse of what it means to have a loving grandfather. There are poems in the book though it also includes much more than just poetry. It is out of print with only a few reasonably-priced used copies hanging around out there, so you might want to grab this one right away if you’re interested.

Sweet Additions

I just couldn’t write this list without including these sweet additions. These titles are probably not as well known as the others, but they are some of the simple pleasures on our poetry shelves.

Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea is probably the sweetest little book of poetry we own. Reading it makes me feel like a child again, and it speaks to every corner of what I know to be the life of a Black child. The illustrations, all in warm hues, capture the everyday rhythms and feelings of African American life, as I know it, in such a natural way.

From a Child’s Heart is a book of prayers in verse written to God in the voice of a child. That alone makes it just the sweetest thing, but the illustrations of Black children moving about in various scenes of everyday life help add to its charm.

God is never far away. We only think He is. Sometimes it take a child to remind us of that, which, when you think about it, makes perfect sense: Children are closer to the source. They seem to know that God’s nearby, that we can talk to Him anytime, anywhere, in any language – straight from the heart.

– Nikki Grimes, From a Child’s Heart

This list is certainly not exhaustive. In fact, I’ve only scratched the surface of the amazing body of poetic work African Americans have written and continue to pen. I hope that you found additional work from old favorites or perhaps even met a new poet friend or two in this list. If you have beloved poetry books that I haven’t included, please include them in the comments for all to enjoy.

You can find me on Instagram at @heritagemomblog. See you there!