"What Is Black?" A poem by Mary O'Neill

For this entry, I chose a poem written by Mary O'Neill from her poetry book  Hailstones and Halibut Bones, where it is about adventures in color and illustrated by John Wallner. The book itself is wonderful, full of beautiful illustrations that are visually striking to the eye while pertaining to each individual color poem, giving the reader a fascinating and beautiful experience. For the poem itself, I chose the color black. Below is the full poem.

"What Is Black?"

Black is the night

When there isn't a star

And you can't tell by looking

Where you are.

Black is a pail of paving tar. 

Black is jet

And things you'd like to forget

Black is a smokestack

Black is a cat,

A leopard, a raven,

A high silk hat.

The sound of black is 

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

Echoing in

An empty room.

Black is kind -

It covers up

The run-down street, 

The broken cup.

Black is charcoal

And patio grill,

The soot spots on 

The window sill.

Black is a feeling

Hard to explain

Like suffering but

Without the pain.

Black is licorice

And patent leather shoes

Black is the print 

In the news.

Black is beauty

In its deepest form,

The darkest cloud 

In a thunderstorm.

Think of what starlight

And lamplight would lack

Diamonds and fireflies

If they couldn't lean against Black... (O'Neill, 1960).

The verses of the poem speak about every day items in a manner that speaks to its readers allowing them to clearly identify and relate to the various items. However, not only does O'Neill present physical items, she expresses feelings and associates them with the color black. Using alliteration, the poem repeats consonant sounds and strong rhythm and rhyme to express the meaning (Galda, Cullinan, & Sipe, 2010, pg. 147). The structure of the poem shows its well-constructed design, where the shapes and patterns assist in the meaning of the word black (Galda, Cullinan, & Sipe, 2010, pg. 147), and the use of descriptions like "The soot spots on" and "The darkest cloud" (O'Neill, 1960) assist in developing the words into pictures.When evaluating the poem's genre, it has all of the characteristics and styling of well-written prose.

Evaluating John Wallner's illustrations for the book, they represent clear and detailed pictures that fit the verse very well in their design. The pictures associated with "What Is Black?" are smoky, muted, with different tones of black, grey, white; and browns featuring images of a cat, raven, window; and the moon. His style is somewhat realistic with cartoon-like features, yet remaining quite detailed. 

There are a couple of motivational activities including reader questions that can be presented based on the poem and illustrations. The first would be a character scrapbook for the main "characters". They could use items like diamonds, fireflies, cups; and other items from the poem, and utilize the images to create a collage picture. They could include different variations of their own poems for what they believe is black as well. Another activity could include writing a theme song to go along with a particular verse of the poem while creating an essay to accompany it, explaining why they wrote it and how it relates in particular to the verse they chose (Galda, Cullinan, & Sipe, 2010, pg. 351).

I would recommend that everyone read these delightful color poems to their children, especially if they are young, as it will help them be able to identify colors.

References

Galda, L., Cullinan, B. E., & Sipe, L. R. (2010). Literature and the Child. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cenage Learning.

O'Neill, M. (1961, 1989). Hailstones and Halibut Bones. New York: Doubleday.