Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming

Jacqueline Woodson in her collection of poems, entitled Brown Girl Dreaming, provides the reader with vivid free verse poems that gives the reader a glimpse into a child's soul as she searches for her place in the world. Many of the free verse poems tell stories similar to those of the author, Woodson, who grew up in the 1960's and 70's in both the North and South; Brooklyn, New York and South Carolina respectively.

In the first part of her poetry entitled, "I am Born", she has a poem called Home. Like the rest of the poem in the book, this is a continuation of the last poem. The young girl has gotten off the bus with her family and has now arrived at her grandparents house. In this poem, the speaker describes her grandparents home. One the interesting aspects of the poem is that her grandparents home is not described in great detail and specificity. The poem reads, "A front porch swing thirsty for oil. A pot of Azaleas blooming. A pine tree." Her grandparents home could be located anywhere. These details are not specific to the speaker's grandparents home, but could more largely represent how her grandparents home is like any other child's grandparent's home. It is just the basic things that one could see when they arrive at any home; a tree, some flowers and a front porch, nothing very fancy or even special. I think this is apart of the Woodson's agenda to indicate to the reader that all people can relate to this basic setting, all people have this basic setting of a house. This is Woodson's way of saying we are all one in the same. There are basic things about us that make us all the same.

In part II of her collection of free verse poems entitled, "the stories of South Carolina Run Like Rivers," there is a poem which bring out her writing style which is very simplistic, but narrative where she paints a picture in the readers mind. She often uses long sentences with many commas equal to a stream-of-conscious writing style to give the reader many details of the 1960's and 70's were like for blacks. The speaker notes, "There are white men working at the printing press beside Daddy, their fingers blackened with ink so that at the end of the day, palms up, it is hard to tell who is white and who is not..." The speaker paints a very real image for the reader, but also makes it a point that the reader knows that the black man and the white man palms are indistinguishable when they are both working at the printing press. Again, alluding to the idea that the men are one in the same, meaning, they are all human and have the same human nature. The only difference is their race.