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Summary
Summary
Today my name is colorful.
Yesterday my name was dead souls.
Tomorrow my name will be lively spirits.
My friends think my name is fire.
The police think my name is burden.
My parents think my name is symphony.
Secretly I know my name is anything I want it to be.
Paint Me Like I Am is a collection of poems by teens who have taken part in writing programs run by a national nonprofit organization called WritersCorps. To read the words of these young people is to hear the diverse voices of teenagers everywhere.
Included are a foreward by acclaimed poet Nikki Giovanni, an essay from Kevin Powell, another poet associated with WritersCorps, and writing tips from WritersCorps instructors.
WritersCorps was started in 1994 to help at-risk youth in three American urban centers: San Francisco, Washington, DC, and New York City (the Bronx). Thousands of children and teenagers have since benefited from finding creative expression through writing.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 7 Up-WritersCorps works with disadvantaged youth, encouraging teens to express themselves through writing and recording voices that might otherwise not be heard. The young people have a lot to say about race, drugs, abuse, and self-image, as seen in these honest and sometimes raw poems. There are some good metaphors here ("Bodies sprawled along the shelter's floor-,/like sloppy cursive writing-" "I'm a sleepy flower,/and the ground waves at me"). "Alone in a darkness that laughs in your face," one poem notes. All the contributors are intensely aware of "self." One girl writes, "When I feel like I'm going to fall apart,/I hold my ribs, all the way around-/I hold brightness and shadows in/the hollow where my ribs meet-/I hold my ribs, until I feel solid." As in any anthology, there are some literary jewels and some less-poetic but more openly honest rants. There is much to learn from these young people.-Sharon Korbeck, Waupaca Area Public Library, WI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Nikki Giovanni provides the foreword, adolescents from San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and the Bronx, the verse-in Paint Me Like I Am: Teen Poems from WritersCorps. "Why don't you paint me/ Like I am?" begins Delia Garcia's title poem. "Paint me happy,/ Laughing, running down a path of happiness/ Paint me with a smile on my face." An inspirational quote and a suggested tip or exercise ("Write as if you were in your favorite month or the month your birthday is in") introduce each of the volume's seven sections. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
Each of this book's seven sections, including I Too Am American and Furious, begins with a writing assignment given to teens participating in WritersCorps, a literacy program directed at disadvantaged youth. Subjects include jazz, race, crushes, addiction, and names, and although not every piece is a literary standout, collectively, they amount to a memorable portrait of urban adolescence. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
As anthologies of teen poems become more and more plentiful, WritersCorps offers an attractive volume to supplement teen collections. Poems by teens in the San Francisco, New York, and Washington, DC, programs are gathered loosely into sections with titles like "Friendship," "I Too Am American," and "Furious." Each section begins with a quote about writing, and a sample writing exercise. The free-verse poems vary in voice from narrative to lyric to performance; they are edgy, mysterious, and assertive in tone. Subjects range from friendship to parenthood, from the importance of doing right to the importance of doing nothing. "My favorite food is burnt lasagna / Because the world is / Black, bloody and cheesy to me anyway," proclaims Karen Baylor, while Ember Ward writes, "I hold brightness and shadows in / The hollow where my ribs meet . . . / I hold my ribs, until I feel solid. / Until my legs are tree trunks and / My fingers are fruit." The poems in the collection are mixed in their effectiveness; there is no editor mentioned, or any indication of how the poems were selected or when they were written. Other collections of teen writing offer a stronger package, such as those edited by Betsy Franco (Things I Have to Tell You, 2001, and You Hear Me?, 2000), or the annual anthologies from the San Francisco Arts Council WritersCorps project (most recently Believe Me, I Know, 2002). Nevertheless, this volume will be appreciated in teen collections that already offer similar anthologies. (Poetry. YA) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Gr. 7^-12. "I am the Great Wall sleeping on the land." "I'm the broken pieces on the floor." "My name is furious." "Secretly, I know my name is anything / I want it to be." The teen voices in these poems, collected from the WritersCorps youth program, are LOUD--raging, defiant, giddy, lusty, and hopeful. Grouped into arbitrary categories, the poems explore identity, creative expression, family, neighborhood, drugs, and relationships. They're rough, sometimes cliched, sometimes forgettable. But the brave experiences and "rawdog emotions," as Kevin Powell writes, are what will stay with readers. "I'm rich baby / Ever since you died," writes a girl after she loses her drug-addicted boyfriend. In "Leaving China," Jeff Miao writes, "To say good-bye / Words sick at my heart / The tears would not drop out." A foreword from Nikki Giovanni rounds out this moving collection, which also includes a few thoughtful writing exercises. --Gillian Engberg
