Carver: A Life in Poems by Marilyn
Nelson
Entrepreneurial Alchemy?S Best And Greatest Advocate
This collection of poems assembled by award-winning writer Marilyn
Nelson provides young readers with a compelling, lyrical account of the life
of revered African-American botanist and inventor George Washington
Carver. Born in 1864 and raised by white slave owners, Carver left home
in search of an education and eventually earned a master’s degree in
agriculture. In 1896, he was invited by Booker T. Washington to head the
agricultural department at the all-black-staffed Tuskegee Institute. There
he conducted innovative research to find uses for crops such as cowpeas,
sweet potatoes, and peanuts, while seeking solutions to the plight of
landless black farmers. Through 44 poems, told from the point of view of
Carver and the people who knew him, Nelson celebrates his character and
accomplishments. She includes prose summaries of events and archival
photographs.
Personal Review: Carver: A Life in Poems by Marilyn Nelson

As a person coming from a hard-core science and engineering
background, I never thought that poetry had any `value'. I never once saw
in poetry insight into the nature and state of affairs of human beings. So I
was very surprised when I read Ms. Nelson's Carver, A Life in Poems. Ms.
Nelson presents us with poetry so rich in texture, so layered in meaning
that these few lines of prose convey much, much more information than
hundreds of pages of dry text. The book skillfully combines anecdotal
historical footnotes with powerful poetic prose to tell the story of the most
influential man in American agricultural history. Carver the man overcame
severe hardship and the prejudices of others to achieve great things.
Living in a time when opportunities were few and far between for American
Blacks, and slavery was a vivid recollection, Carver blazed a trail that few
have been able to even approach, let alone top, since then. Even though
he dealt with his share of racism, not every person not of African-American
ancestry was unkind to him. Given the least of all of his peers, black or
white, Carver went on to achieve the most in life. In spite of the hardships,
the racism, and even the slights and insults of his own people, he left
behind a legacy of good work, compassion, and technical accomplishment
that stands the test of time. As such, Carver takes a solid place among the
great minds of antiquity- from Imhotep, Egypt's greatest builder, to
Confucius, China's greatest thinker and statesman. Although Carver's
array of inventions is impressive, his ingenuity and knack for turning what
others see as worthless into something valuable, as in the poems
`Chemistry 101' and `The Wild Garden' and `God's Little Workshop', is truly
astounding. Carver had tremendous impact in a host of scientific
disciplines- agronomy, botany, chemistry, and plant pathology to name a
few. For me, Carver's life demonstrates the importance of a creative and
spiritual base. Carver could not have developed the hundreds of practical
uses for the `goober', or peanut-the plant that African slaves brought to the
United States, and that White farmers fed to their animals before eating
themselves- if he did not have a highly developed creative side. Moreover,
his unyielding faith in the Creator, and his reliance on his faith in times of
great peril and suffering, enabled him to endure what I and most other
people would consider to be the unendurable. Carver's creativity and great
spiritual faith gave him the inspiration to make practical use of those things
that others considered worthless. In many ways, Carver was the
unassailable prototype of the entrepreneurial alchemist- he created
something of value out of literally nothing. Professor Carver's many
achievements clearly demonstrate the importance of the study of economic
botany.I would like to add that four of his most important contributions to
agricultural science- resting the land, crop rotations, application of riparian
sediments and the use of legumes to replenish the vital nutrients of
intensively cultivated and depleted soils, closely parallel the ecological
practices of the great agrarian societies of Asia and Central and South
America. The Native Americans, and their Asian compatriots, were well
aware of the benefits of these practices, and had developed strong, stable
and successful agricultural methods which in turn allowed for the flowering
of some of history's greatest civilizations- the Inca, the Maya and the Aztec
cultures. In fact, as F H King pointed out in his groundbreaking work,

Farmers of Forty Centuries, at the beginning of the 20th century, the
farmers of Asia had been using these techniques continuously to maintain
and perpetuate the cultivation of the same plots of land, feeding increasing
numbers of their people, for over four thousand years. In effect, these
ancient farmers had developed sustainable farming practices and
projected them four millennia into the present. In this way, I see Professor
Carver as not only the Father of the Peanut industry, he is, and rightly so,
The Father of Sustainable Agriculture in America. It is both refreshing
and heart-warming to me to know that an African-American man of science
can also be a Renaissance Man in the fullest sense of the word. Gifted in
the arts and gifted in the sciences, Carver blended art and practicality in a
way I can only hope to partially attain. From this book, I humbly receive a
new and invaluable hero, a new and awesome role model- Professor
Carver, Jack of All Trades, Renaissance Man Extraordinaire- a true man of
the people, a true Titan of Science.
For More 5 Star Customer Reviews and Lowest Price:
Carver: A Life in Poems by Marilyn Nelson 5 Star Customer Reviews and Lowest Price!