Module 2: NCTE Award Poetry

Module 2: NCTE Award Poetry

A Wreath for Emmett Till

Ivana Marmolejo

Bibliography

Nelson, Marilyn, and Philippe Lardy. A Wreath for Emmett Till. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2005. 

Summary

A Wreath for Emmett Till is a book of poetry written by Marilyn Nelson, an NCTE Award recipient. The book is about the lynching of Emmett Till, the impact his death had

on the author, and what it meant for others. The book is comprised of fifteen sonnets that make up a crown of sonnets. A crown of sonnets is when the last line of a poem links to the next poem by using that same line as the opening line of the following poem. Finally, the last poem is made up of all fifteen first lines of each sonnet. Readers will enjoy reading this rare style of poetry, along with the vivid pictures illustrated by Philippe Lardy. 

Analysis

A Wreath for Emmett Till is a painfully beautiful book of poetry about Emmett Till and the implications of his death. The book centers around topics of death, brutality, injustice, racism, mourning, and hurt. Readers will be emotionally committed from the first sonnet to the last. 

Some poems rhyme, while others are free-verse poems. The book has several references to other literary works and analogies the reader might not readily identify or understand. However, at the back of the book, there is a section called, “Sonnet Notes” where the author has provided detailed descriptions and explanations of these references. The reader can go back and reread the sonnets with a deeper understanding. 

Throughout the book, readers will enjoy the author’s effortless use of figurative language. For example, “This country we love has a Janus face:/ One mouth speaks with forked tongue, and the other reads/ the Constitution.” Instead of telling the reader that our country is hypocritical, the reader can understand the hypocrisy through the symbolic use of the two-faced Janus. 

Another example of figurative language is the use of personification. In a few poems, a tree is a witness to countless deaths and murders over a period of two hundred years. The tree is described as being drenched at its root from Emmett’s shed blood as it hears his screams. Eventually, his blood is absorbed into the tree’s dendrochronology, preserved forever. 

The tone is somber, gut-wrenching, and truthfully unfiltered. Readers will appreciate Nelson’s raw depiction of this moment in history while admiring her writing style in this brilliantly crafted crown of sonnets.

Poem/ Excerpt and Activity 

I’d like students to spend some time looking up and understanding what a crown of sonnets is. They can do background research on who has written a crown of sonnets and why it is such a rare form of poetry. Students would then read the book.

As a second activity, students would read the excerpt below.

Then, using personification, they would write their own poem from the points of view of an object, animal, tree, or other thing. It could be related to a piece of history, or it can be something fictional. Some ideas could be writing from the points of view of Excalibur’s sword, Noah’s ark, a book on a shelf, a pen in the hand of its writer, and so much more.