Martin Rising: Requiem for a King by Andrea Davis Pinkney (review)

This sequence of what the author terms "docu-poems" follows Martin Luther King, Jr. from January to April of 1968. Compact, short-lined poems, mostly free verse but with a few stealth rhymes amping up the impact, are divided into three sections, "Daylight," "Darkness," and "Dawn," as they move from King's thirty-ninth birthday to his presence in Memphis to support the sanitation workers' strike to his assassination and its aftermath. The poetry is uneven, with strained and sustained metaphors sometimes interfering with the story, and the device of Henny Penny as a periodically appearing choral figure is jarring; however, once the narrative picks up pace its mythic framing of tragedy is effective, with weather serving as dramatic soundtrack and symbol. Brian Pinkney's watercolor, gouache, and ink art is loose and kinetic, with swirling wash brushstrokes often haloing the events; images range from portraiture of the dramatis personae to group scenes to abstract moody backgrounds in an elegant layout. This could be an effective entry point, in reading alone or aloud or in readers theater performance, to the Memphis sanitation workers' strike for those not yet ready for Bausum's Marching to the Mountaintop: How Poverty, Labor Fights, and Civil Rights Set the Stage for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Final Hours (BCCB 3/12). Extensive end matter gives information about the author's and illustrator's process, provides photographs and more detail about the sanitation workers' strike, and offers a timeline and bibliography; source notes will be included in the bound book. DS