Editor Knight-Justice, who contributes two illustrations, explains in a note that at age 14, Hughes\u2019 poem \u201cMother to Son\u201d not only introduced him to poetry\u2019s rich possibilities, but deepened his understanding of his relationship with his own mother. He writes, \u201cThis is what poetry did for me, and I want it to do the same for you.\u201d Some poems receive double-page spreads, while others, thematically aligned, appear on facing pages. \u201cDream Variation,\u201d like other selections, sees night as a solace\u2014a warm, positive reflection of Blackness: \u201cThen rest at cool evening \/ Beneath a tall tree \/ While night comes on gently, \/ Dark like me\u2014 \/ That is my dream!\u201d The facing poem, \u201cHarlem Night Song,\u201d invites a loved one to roam nighttime streets pulsing with jazz. To visually unify the project, the artists adopt a palette of blues and purples accented with warm yellows, oranges, and the varied skin tones of the mainly Black and Brown children and adults that enliven each spread. Styles vary, from Islenia Mil\u2019s sepia-rich nightclub scene for \u201cJazzonia\u201d and Janelle Washington\u2019s stylized seascape for \u201cLong Trip\u201d to Frank Morrison\u2019s epic painting for \u201cThe Negro Speaks of Rivers,\u201d in which families aboard a wooden craft struggle amid high waves below a stormy sky.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Editor Knight-Justice, who contributes two illustrations, explains in a note that at age 14, Hughes\u2019 poem \u201cMother to Son\u201d not only introduced him to poetry\u2019s rich possibilities, but deepened his understanding of his relationship with his own mother. He writes, \u201cThis is what poetry did for me, and I want it to do the same […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5435"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}