{"id":6454,"date":"2021-08-20T16:13:41","date_gmt":"2021-08-20T16:13:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/?p=6454"},"modified":"2021-08-20T16:14:17","modified_gmt":"2021-08-20T16:14:17","slug":"woke-is-a-call-to-activism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/woke-is-a-call-to-activism\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Woke’ is a call to activism"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘Woke’ is a call to activism for the young:<\/h1>\n
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Poets have historically been on the forefront of social movements. \u201cWoke: A Young Poet’s Guide to Justice\u201d is a collection of poems by women that reflects joy and passion in the fight for social justice, tackling topics from discrimination, empathy and forgiveness to acceptance and speaking out.<\/p>\n

Identity issues are covered, too, with poems on disability, gender, immigration and intersectionality. Each of the 24 poems is an invitation to join a new generation of activists and is easily recitable in the ever popular spoken-word tradition.<\/p>\n

Co-author Mahogany L. Browne’s introduction first defines what it means to be woke: \u201cTo fight for your civil rights and to fight for the rights of your neighbors.\u201d She calls the poems in the book \u201cinstruction manuals and anthems, as literary heartbeats and blueprints of survival for young people everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The poems by Browne, Elizabeth Acevedo and Olivia Gatwood combine clear declarations with easily understood metaphors to convey progressive values.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Privilege is compared to a toolbox (\u201cWe can choose\/to use it to help people who don\u2019t have what we do\u201d) and gender to a rainbow (\u201cThere are so many shades between boy and girl\u201d). Each poem\u2019s intended value appears next to its page number, including individuality (\u201cTeeth Dance With Silver\u201d), body positivity (\u201cThe Good Body\u201d) and ableism (\u201cThe Ability to Be\u201d).<\/p>\n

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\u201cRight To\u201d explains the value of protest: \u201cIf we must live, let it not be in silence … Each shadow surrounding our right to be outraged … Let us not sit hands crossed while our stomachs growl upset.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cA Me-Shaped Box\u201d brings stereotyping to light: \u201cBefore we even know someone, we say, \u2018if you look like that, you go in thisss box!\u2019 or \u2018f you talk like this, you go in that box!\u2019 … stereotyping keeps us from geeetting to know people for who they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

The text\u2019s direct style is matched by richly colorful illustrations by Theodore Taylor III.<\/p>\n

The varied topics are a great conversation-starter with children ages 8-12. Look for assigned subject headings located next to the page numbers.<\/p>\n

Browne best describes the poems this way: \u201cThe ideas they tackle are layered and nuanced, the message is simple: Don\u2019t Sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘Woke’ is a call to activism for the young: Poets have historically been on the forefront of social movements. \u201cWoke: A Young Poet’s Guide to Justice\u201d is a collection of poems by women that reflects joy and passion in the fight for social justice, tackling topics from discrimination, empathy and forgiveness to acceptance and speaking Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6456,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[133,58,433,1],"tags":[1047],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6454"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6454"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6458,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6454\/revisions\/6458"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}