‘Dream in Color’
JMU, Target launch year-long celebration of poetry sponsored by Maya Angelou
By Ashley Hopkins, staff writer
Posted on January 29, 2007

“Here’s a newborn sun; Orange and light; Reborn at East Hospital; Impossible to wake up at night; Zoos of colorful blankets in crib-like sky; Once up, then down; Nicknamed dawn.”

So reads an acrostic poem written by Kyra Bennington, an 11-year-old poet featured in Target’s Dream in Color campaign.

The campaign, sponsored by world-renowned author and poet Maya Angelou, was created in a partnership with the Poetry Foundation and  JMU’s Furious Flower Poetry Center. The year-long project kicked off on Martin Luther King Day.

“Every [national] Target tries to do something to try to incorporate Black History Month into the store, just so [people] know we appreciate diversity,” said Amber Bernot, executive team leader of Softlines for the Harrisonburg company.

Dream in Color was organized through an online curriculum designed by faculty members Julie Caran, Elizabeth Haworth and Joanne Gabbin of Furious Flower, and provides elementary, middle and high school teachers with lesson plans, discussion guides, bibliographies, poetic terms and classroom activities to use with their students.

 These exercises, catered to a student’s age group, include works by nine African-American poets, past and present, including Langston Hughes, Kevin Young and Paul Laurence Dunbar.  Encompassing themes relevant to many students, such as love, food and self-image, the curriculum is designed to promote African-American poetry while increasing student interest in verse in general.

“A lot of people are intimidated by poetry and we hope to make it fun,” Caran said.

Haworth also emphasized the importance of making poetry something that can be enjoyed by all, saying that one of the hardest parts of designing the curriculum was finding poems to incorporate into specific age groups.

“One of our biggest difficulties was figuring out what kids would sneer at and finding poems that would speak meaningfully for boys,” she said. “I hope kids really will get more exposure to African-American poetry, and I hope that it will cause them to want to explore poetry of all kinds in the future.”

It seems as though Caran and Haworth’s wishes may have been granted, as students of all ages and faculty are enthusiastic about the program.

Both Bennington and her grandmother, Karen Bennington of Academy AFF-Academic Support at JMU, are very optimistic about the campaign and said that it will make great strides in children’s education. While Kyra has always enjoyed writing, and attending poetry camps over the past few years, Karen thinks that the program is going to be a success for even less enthusiastic students.

“I’m really impressed with it,” she said. “It seems like a painless way for the young ones to learn poetry.”

Junior Laurence Lewis is also positive about Dream in Color. He said that when he was in school his teachers mainly focused on classical, white poets and thought that the change in curriculum would be a positive one.

“I think it’s a good idea, considering a lot of places lack diversity,” he said. “It will promote a better world view.”