Margin Notes

“[They] would never understand what I am finally

understanding, which is that

bodies aren’t lawless spaces

like mom said.

They are

cages,

places we are trapped inside,

and the world just gets to

look and

decide

who we

are”

                                                                                -Mimi, Lawless Spaces

Through the journals of four generations of women in the Dovewick family, Lawless Spaces by Corey Ann Haydu explores the lasting impacts of living in a patriarchal society. The story starts with Mimi, in 2022, who, following family tradition, is gifted a journal for her 16^th birthday. But because she has been emotionally (and at times physically) abandoned by her mother, this is all she receives – there is no celebration at all. It is as confusing for the reader as it is for Mimi to understand how her once loving mother has turned into such an unrecognizable stranger who, seemingly, feels nothing towards her daughter save the occasional bursts of anger. To understand this new “mother” Mimi turns to the journals of her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother.

The stories, written in verse, that are shared by the different generations of sixteen-year-old include stories of sexual assault, harassment, and trauma. For Mimi, in 2022, it is an image posted on social media that she was coerced into taking. For Tiffany in 1999, it is the non-consensual relationship with a powerful man as she attempts to enter the world of acting. For Betty in 1954, it is the pressure to give up a child to maintain her family’s reputation. And for Virginia in 1924, it is living the life expected when you are the wife of a soldier sent to war.

The generational trauma of these four women leads to intergenerational family trauma where silence, repression, and hostility reign. While it is too late to amend some of these relationships, Mimi is determined to break this cycle of trauma, and salvage what relationships she can.

Ultimately, this is a book about women’s bodies, the ways they have been and continue to be consumed by men, and the power of women joining together and sharing their stories. The message for women to continue to tell their stories is an important one, and many students still need to hear it, and for that reason this novel is an important title to add to a classroom library.

Ain’t Burned All The Bright is the collaboration of author Jason Reynolds and artist Jason Griffin. Set in the year 2020, during lockdown, the story consists of three sections, three breaths. The narrator is a young adult trying to make sense of lockdown, what is means to be black in America right now, and how both contribute to his lack of oxygen. The reader can feel the suffocation as he details his father’s battle with COVID quarantine, his mother’s paralyzed consumption of the news and his siblings’ distracted avoidance of all issues. He becomes every reader as he struggles to find oxygen and desperately searches for air, both literally and figuratively. The hope that comes when he does find that breathe is contagious and provides the promise that society can find the strength to move forward, make changes, and finally breath.

Reynold’s lyrical ability to play with words, combined with Griffin’s art, pair together to express the complicated emotions of our narrator, leaving the story, and the ideas expressed within, resonating with many young adults long after closing the book.

The beauty of this piece does not end with the rejuvenating breath. After the story, this book includes a little gem of a conversation between the two collaborators. In a final section titled, “is anyone still here?” Reynolds and Griffin share the journey of creating this piece of work together. This interview style closure is one that reveals the trust between the two creators, their trust in the writing process itself, and offers up some great advice for student writers and artists.

My first introduction to Maggie Smith’s poetry was during a quickwrite when we were invited to write beside her poem Good Bones. I was immediately drawn in by its powerful images and direct language, and I found myself thinking about the repeated phrase, “though I keep this from my children” long after I had put my writer’s notebook away.

I have read Maggie Smith’s most recent collection, Goldenrod, multiple times and in various ways: straight through in one sitting the day I got it, slowly and deliberately while capturing favorite lines in my notebook, and dipping in and out to revisit poems that I continue to mull over. The poems found in Goldenrod touch on love and loss, parenthood and childhood, the pandemic, and the truths and wonders that exist in the world when we take the time to notice them. It is brimming with possibilities for the high school ELA classroom.

You can read three poems from Goldenrod here:

Written Deer

During Lockdown, I Let the Dog Sleep in My Bed Again

How Dark the Beginning

In this episode of The Wintering Sessions, writer Katherine May interviews Maggie Smith.

Here is a Craft Studio post about Keep Moving by Maggie Smith.