Poetry Break with “Egyptian Blue” by Marilyn Nelson
Nelson, Marilyn. 2001. Carver: A Life in Poems. Photo for poem by Eric Long. Asheville, North Carolina: Front Street.
Introduction: This is an appropriate poem for this semester, as the King Tut exhibit is currently on display at the Dallas Museum of Art. Before reading the poem, gather pictures of Egyptian relics found in the tomb of King Tut from the internet, a book on Egypt, or a brochure from the exhibit. Point out the brilliant blue color of many of the artifacts. Read “Egyptian Blue”.
Egyptian Blue
From red clay spotted on a hillside
Carver came up with a quadruple-
oxidized pigment the blue
of a royal mummy’s innermost windings,
an Egyptian blue
no artist or scientist had duplicated
since the days of old King Tut.
It’s the bluest blue,
bluer than lapis.
Paint factories and manufacturers
of artists’ materials
begged him for the formula,
offering the top floor of Fort Knox.
He sent it
for the cost of the two-cent stamp
it cost to mail it.
It’s an indescribable blue.
You see it every day
on everything from shutters
to a child-sized flowered dress.
We’ve learned to live with it
without loving it, as if it were
something ordinary,
that blue the world sought for five thousand years.
Look around with me: There it is
in the folder on my desk,
in my close-up photo of a fairy tern,
in the thumbtacks in my corkboard
holding up photos, poems, quotes, prayers,
a beaded ancestral goddess juju doll
(it’s the blue of the scarab in her hand).
It’s the blue of that dictionary
of American Regional English,
of the box of eighty standard envelopes,
the blue of that dress waiting to be ironed,
the blue of sky in that Guatemalan cross,
it’s the blue of the Black Madonna’s veil.
Extension: This poem can be extended in several ways.
1) Science: Divide the class into groups of five each. Provide food coloring in primary colors (red, blue, yellow), a glass beaker, medicine droppers for each color, and a small stir stick. Assign three group members to be responsible for the colors, one member to stir, and one member to record the findings. Tell the groups that they will be combining colors and recording results. They can combine any number of drops of color in any order (washing out the beaker between combinations) as long as the recorder carefully writes down what was used (or the teacher can designate specific color combinations). At the end of the experiment, each group should present the color they liked the best, explaining how many drops of each color were added as they combine the colors for the class (each group could also combine the colors as the presenting group explains the process in order to see if the colors are the same in each beaker).
2) History/Social Studies: Ask the class if they know what a Fairy Tern is, what a Guatemalan Cross looks like, and what the veil of the Black Madonna looks like. Provide information about these items (for images, see the following links).
Fairy Tern: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2173/2475182931_b3548d2bd1.jpg?v=0
Guatemalan cross: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=22113793
Black Madonna: http://discoverblackheritage.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/shrine-of-the-black-madonna.jpg
3) History/Social Studies: Either have the class do the poetry break in the library or have several books about Carver accessible in the classroom. Since he was a very interesting man, have the students work in pairs to find five facts about his life, as well as a date for each entry. Write each fact on a different strip of paper. Ask each group to present their facts in a time-line form, and then gather the facts in chronological order to have a quick reference for many of the events in Carver’s life.
NOTE: This book contains one poem detailing what happened to part of an African-American man’s male anatomy during a lynching. Therefore, it may not be appropriate to provide students’ direct access to it. Otherwise, the book is a fantastic read about the very interesting life of a man about which I knew nothing.
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