Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Keeping the Night Watch - Book Review

This post was written as a Master's course assignment for Texas Woman's University.


1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Smith, Hope Anita. 2008. KEEPING THE NIGHT WATCH. Illustrations by E.B. Lewis. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company, LLC. ISBN 9780508072020.

2. BOOK SUMMARY
This collection of poems by Hope Anita Smith is a fantastic dichotomy of emotions. Divided into two sections, FALL (20 poems) and SPRING (15 poems), the reader experiences a range of volatile feelings emoted by the narrator, "Cameron James Washington III., aka C.J." The poems center around C.J.'s home life and experiences, and the reader feels the tension and anger rising as C.J. copes with the absence of his father. This collection would appeal to anyone, but especially a young teenager, who is dealing with the difficult emotions of living within a broken family environment.

Words flow freely as Smith writes with raw emotion, colloquial language, and a host of recurring "family members" throughout the collection. The FALL section of poems gathers around the negative feelings that C.J. feels as he grows older, bigger, and wiser about the trends associated with the coming and going of "Daddy." Other "family members" in FALL include: Momma, Grandmomma, Byron, and Zuri (siblings). Two additional characters that emerge in the contrastingly light and exciting SPRING section are PREACHER and MAYA (the narrator's love interest).

Recurring themes throughout the collection include instability in the home life, an absent father, and wishing for things that cannot be obtained (likely due to financial strain). In FAMILY COOKING INSTRUCTIONS, C.J. notes: "We are not done in the middle./We need to bake a little longer" (pg. 5), highlighting the imperfections in everyone, and within the family unit itself. The writing is extremely honest and frank, and hints at the essence of someone who has had to accept a lot of responsibility at a young age, and who maintains an air of bitterness.

The tension is palpable in poems like SHOWDOWN AT THE O.K. CORRAL: "I am like a gunfighter in the Old West./I walk around with my words drawn,/ready to fire" (pg. 13), as though the return of the absent father has provoked a scenario where the house is no longer big enough for both C.J. and his father. In IF YOU CAN'T STAND THE HEAT (pg. 16), we really see the potential for explosive behavior, literally stewing: "I am the worst kind of mad.../I'm a pot with the lid on./I keep all my mad inside."

By contrast, the airy and lighter SPRING section of the book begins with MAYA'S SONNET (pg. 43), and later, in TONGUE TIED (pg. 46), the narrator finds himself tripping over his feelings and words when talking to Maya on the telephone: "Fifty-two-word pile up."  The character PREACHER also makes his debut and plays an extremely important, fatherly role to C.J. through the rest of the book, having a greater and much more positive influence on him than DADDY ever does. Humor arrives, with a breath of relief, in BEST-KEPT SECRET (pg. 61-62), regarding exactly what type of present to buy for Maya. There is a thread of hope for reconciliation with DADDY, but it seems far-off, and a long time from the present.

Illustrations by  E.B. Lewis evoke warm feelings and enhance the strong emotions of the language. The colors used are tactile and real in the portraits, and the faces are life-like and expressive.

3. POEM HIGHLIGHT
The poem I would like to highlight from this collection is MOUNTAIN CLIMBING (pg. 28). This is an emotional masterpiece in 60 words and is an excellent example of how to see the potential to overcome a "mountain" of negative feelings. An exploratory activity that I would lead with children (probably middle school to young high school age) is to begin by reading the poem aloud, and then to have them write down a private letter to someone with whom they have had a struggle. This person could be someone they know- a friend, family member, role model, etc., but should be someone that they have felt wronged or upset by. 

After writing the letters, I would have the children close their eyes, and quietly say out loud, whenever they felt comfortable, "I'm sorry" and "I forgive you," keeping the letter recipient in mind as they speak aloud together. The children could then either ball up the letter and throw it away, keep it to themselves, or even deliver the letter to the recipient. It would be their choice. The purpose of this exercise is to allow the children to feel the potential for forgiving someone, even if it doesn't happen that same day, at that time. The goal is for the children to be able to empathize with what is being experienced by C.J. in this poem- to recognize and acknowledge the feelings, even if the resolution might be a long distance away- and to imagine the possible future release of the build-up of anger/resentment/disappointment etc. that they feel for someone in their lives.


MOUNTAIN CLIMBING

It takes

all of Daddy's energy to 

move his words across the chasm

that separates us.

When he speaks, his words echo

and have lost all meaning when

they finally reach my ear.

I hope, one day,

that my snowy mountain of anger will be

so weighed down with Daddy's apology,

I will be overwhelmed

by an avalanche of forgiveness.


(By Hope Anita Smith)

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