Grabbed this randomly at the local library. Over her lifetime, Ms. Nelson has written quite a few poems about the life of George Washington Carver. This book collects them into one place, and won quite a few award nominations in the process, including a nomination as a National Book Award (it was a finalist but didn't win) and the Coretta Scott King Award (which it did win). 
 The book is organized from Carver's early life as the child of a slave to a young African American working his way in the Black College hierarchy to a later life of greater recognition. Most of the poems work very well as poems, which is surprising when you think about the idea of capturing a person's life in verse. There are a few, however, that sound more like "plot filler" than poem--moving Carver's life along so we can get to the next poetic gem. 
 Nelson does not do all of the poems from Carver's viewpoint or a bland third person. Several are written from the outside looking in, such as "Washboard Wizard" (sadly one of the ones that does not feel very poetic), "Curve Breaker", and "My People", the last being an angry and bitter speaker unhappy with Carver's success: 
 "Strutting around here acting all hunble, 
 when everybody knows 
 he's the only one here 
 got a master's degree 
 from a white man's college. 
 Everybody knows his salary 
 is double ours. He's got two singles 
 in Rockefeller Hall; the rest of us 
 bachelors share doubles. The extra room 
 is for his 'collections.' 
 A pile of you-know-what, 
 if you ask me. 
 All that fake politeness, that white accent. 
 He thinks he's better than us. 
 Wears those mismatched suits every day, too: 
 white men's castoffs with the sleeves too short, 
 the trousers all bagged out at the knees. 
 His ties look like something 
 he made himself. 
 Always some old weed in his lapel, 
 like he's trying to be dapper. 
 It makes you want to laugh. 
 Talking all those big words, 
 quoting poems at you 
 in that womanish voice. 
 So high and mighty, 
 he must think he's white. 
 Wandering around through the fields 
 like a fool, holding classes in the dump. 
 Always on his high horse, as if his 
 wasn't the blackest face on the faculty, 
 as if he wasn't a n-----." 
 Nelson hints at the racial problems in a lot of the poems, though perhaps nowhere better than the poem about a white woman that Carver may have loved, "The Sweet-Hearts." She leaves him because that's what she's supposed to do, and in Nelson's hands, it haunts her all her life. Here's the end of that poem, possibly the longest in the book: 
 "I left at the end of the school year 
 and started a new life. Started you. 
 Children, you are almost grown, 
 and I have saved you from Negro shame. 
 But the man in this clipping 
 might have been your father. 
 Charles.--- 
 I can live no longer 
 this life of a fool. 
 Dear ones, 
 forgive me." 
 It cannot be easy to be so descriptive of a life and yet kept to a poetic form but I think Nelson does the task well. The shifting styles and viewpoints, combined with a few footnotes to help the verse along, do the job. Rather than trying to be a complete biography, the book takes snapshots from Carver's life and talks about them. It's like an entire book of sidebars that might fit within a larger biographic tome. I was quite pleased with how this read, since it's the first time I've read a modern biography done like this. I think it's worth checking out, though fans of pure poetry should be warned that this may be a bit too constrained for you, particularly in the early going. If you stick with it, however, I think you'll be richly rewarded. (Library, 04/08) 
 Trebby's Take: Recommended.