Today's Thoughtful Thursday celebrates Earth Day with poems from three wonderful and accomplished poets: Jane Yolen, Joy Harjo, and Lucille Clifton. In addition to being a celebrated poet, Jane Yolen (b.1939) is a science fiction and fantasy writer, editor and children’s author, whose stories use rhythm and rhyme in conjunction with elements of folklore and fantasy. Critically acclaimed poet [...]
Today's Thoughtful Thursday celebrates the poet Kevin Young, who is now the Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City. The Schomburg, located on 135th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard in Harlem, is a leading research institution focusing exclusively on African-American, African Diaspora, and African experiences. Its collection includes letters, papers and other [...]
How important is it for our kids from lower-income households to have a Black teacher? Very important, it turns out. A recent study conducted by researchers at American University, U.C. Davis and Johns Hopkins reveals that having just one Black teacher in third, fourth or fifth grade reduced low-income Black boys' probability of dropping out of high school by [...]
When Myron Rolle was 17 and a promising football player from New Jersey, he told the coaches at Florida State University during his official recruiting visit that he wanted to be an NFL player, a Rhodes Scholar and a neurosurgeon. Thirteen years later, he is checking the box on the last of these goals. Rolle was a star football [...]
Today's Thoughtful Thursday is a solo show by the poet Ross Gay. Gay is the author of three poetry collections, most recently “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude,” winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. He is a founding editor, with Karissa Chen and Patrick Rosal, of the online sports magazine Some [...]
I was having a conversation with a wise mom recently about the eternal quest to raise children with good values, and we acknowledged 1) how much tougher it is to expect them to know these values if you haven't been clear about what you want to encourage and what you won't tolerate, and 2) it is important to get [...]
The stigma of talking about mental health issues is alive and well in the Black community. We've heard the comments: "Black people don't do therapy", "Nothing wrong with that boy that a little __________ (spanking, time out, grounding, fill in the blank) won't fix", and even "Black people don't commit suicide". But recent stats show we need to be [...]
It's officially Spring! To celebrate the season, the Spring Breaks some of our children are enjoying this week, the worst of the winter storms behind us (we hope), this Thoughtful Thursday offers some Spring poetry. Today's we have odes to Spring from several masters: two poems by the great African American poet Claude McKay, one by the renowned Puerto [...]
March 17th is St. Patrick's Day. While skimming through poetry relating to St. Patrick's Day, frankly expecting to find nothing to hit my fancy, I was pleasantly surprised to run across a poem celebrating motherhood which, while written about an Irish mother, has universal application. I also found a couple of lovely Irish blessings which we all can use. [...]
In celebration of Women's History Month, today's Thoughtful Thursday features poems by well known African-American women poets: "won't you celebrate with me" by Lucille Clifton, "Legacies" by Nikki Giovanni, and "Phenomenal Woman" by Maya Angelou. The following biographies, courtesy of poetryfoundation.org, gives you some insight into their brilliance. A prolific and widely respected poet, Lucille Clifton's work emphasizes endurance [...]