Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Epigraph
POEM BOOK
ROOF
LINE BREAK POEM
MEMORY
MAMA
LILI
FIRST
COMMERCIAL BREAK
HAIKU
GROUP HOME BEFORE MISS EDNA’S HOUSE
HALLOWEEN POEM
PARENTS POEM
SONNET POEM
HOW I GOT MY NAME
DESCRIBE SOMEBODY
EPISTLE POEM
ROOF POEM II
ME, ERIC, LAMONT & ANGEL
FAILING
NEW BOY
DECEMBER 9
LIST POEM
LATE SATURDAY AFTERNOON IN HALSEY STREET PARK
PIGEON
SOMETIMES POEM
WAR POEM
GEORGIA
NEW BOY POEM II
TUESDAY
VISITING
JUST NOTHING POEM
GOD POEM
ALL OF A SUDDEN, THE POEM
HEY DOG
OCCASIONAL POEM
HAIKU POEM
LATENYA
POETRY POEM
ERIC POEM
LAMONT
HIP HOP RULES THE WORLD
PHOTOGRAPHS
NEW BOY POEM III
HAPPINESS POEM
BIRTH
LILI’S NEW MAMA’S HOUSE
CHURCH
NEW BOY POEM IV
TEACHER OF THE YEAR
EASTER SUNDAY
RODNEY
EPITAPH POEM
FIREFLY
THE FIRE
ALMOST SUMMER SKY
CLYDE POEM I: DOWN SOUTH
FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL
DEAR GOD
LATENYA II
JUNE
Acknowledgements
MAMA
Some days, like today
and yesterday and probably
tomorrow—all my missing gets jumbled up inside of me.
You know honeysuckle talc powder?
Mama used to smell like that. She told me
honeysuckle’s really a flower but all I know
is the powder that smells like Mama.
Sometimes when the missing gets real bad
I go to the drugstore and before the guard starts
following me around like I’m gonna steal something
I go to the cosmetics lady and ask her if she has it....
BOOKS BY JACQUELINE WOODSON
THE MAIZON BOOKS
Last Summer with Maizon
Maizon at Blue Hill
Between Madison and Palmetto
FOR OLDER READERS
Behind You
The Dear One
The House You Pass On the Way
Hush
Locomotion
Miracle’s Boys
PICTURE BOOKS
The Other Side
SPEAK
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Group (Canada), 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland
(a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
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Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank,
Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in the United States of America by G. P. Putnam’s Sons,
a division of Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers, 2003
Published by Speak, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2004
Copyright © Jacqueline Woodson, 2003
All rights reserved
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE PUTNAM EDITION AS FOLLOWS:
Woodson, Jacqueline.
Locomotion / Jacqueline Woodson.
p. cm.
Summary: In a series of poems, eleven-year-old Lonnie writes about his
life after the death of his parents, separated from his younger sister,
living in a foster home, and finding his poetic voice at school.
eISBN : 978-1-440-69588-9
1. African American boys—Juvenile poetry. 2. Brothers and sisters—Juvenile poetry.
3. Foster home care—Juvenile poetry. 4. Orphans—Juvenile poetry. 5. Schools—Juvenile
poetry. 6. Children’s poetry, American. [1. Brothers and sisters—Poetry.
2. African Americans—Poetry. 3. Foster home care—Poetry. 4. Orphans—Poetry.
5. Schools—Poetry. 6. American Poetry.] I. Title.
PS3573.O64524 L’.54—dc21 2002069779
http://us.penguingroup.com
FOR TOSHI GEORGIANNA AND JUNA FRANKLIN
Name all the people
You’re always thinking about
People are poems.
—Lonnie C. Motion
POEM BOOK
This whole book’s a poem ’cause every time I try to
tell the whole story my mind goes Be quiet!
Only it’s not my mind’s voice,
it’s Miss Edna’s over and over and over
Be quiet!
I’m not a really loud kid, I swear. I’m just me and
sometimes I maybe make a little bit of noise.
If I was a grown-up maybe Miss Edna
wouldn’t always be telling me to be quiet
but I’m eleven and maybe eleven’s just noisy.
Maybe twelve’s quieter.
But when Miss Edna’s voice comes on, the ideas in my
head go out like a candle and all you see left is this little
string of smoke that disappears real quick
before I even have a chance to find out
what it’s trying to say.
So this whole book’s a poem because poetry’s short and
this whole book’s a poem ’cause Ms. Marcus says
write it down before it leaves your brain.
I tell her about the smoke and she says
Good, Lonnie, write that.
Not a whole lot of people be saying Good, Lonnie to me
so I write the string-of-smoke thing down real fast.
Ms. Marcus says We’ll worry about line breaks later.
Write fast, Lonnie, Ms. Marcus says.
And I’m thinking Yeah, I better write fast before Miss
Edna’s voice comes on and blows my candle idea out.
ROOF
At night sometimes after Miss Edna goes to bed I go
up on the roof
Sometimes I sit counting the stars
Maybe one is my mama and
another one is my daddy And maybe that’s why
sometimes they flicker a bit
I mean the stars flicker
LINE BREAK POEM
Ms. Marcus
says
line breaks help
us figure out
what matters
to the poet
Don’t jumble your ideas
Ms. Marcus says
Every line
should count.
MEMORY
Once when we was real
little
I was sitting at the window holding my baby sister, Lili
on my lap.
Mama was in the kitchen and Daddy must’ve
been at work.
Mama kept saying
Honey, don’t you drop my baby.
A pigeon came flying over to the ledge
and was looking at us.
Lili put her hand on the glass and the pigeon tried
to peck at it.
Lili snatched her hand away and screamed.
Not a scared scream,
just one of those laughing screams
that babies who can’t talk yet like to do.
Mama came running out the kitchen
drying her hands on her jeans.
When she saw us just sitting there, she let out a breath.
Oh, my Lord, she said,
I thought you’d dropped my baby.
I asked
Was I ever your baby, Mama?
and Mama looked at me all warm and smiley.
You still are, she said.
Then she went back in the kitchen.
I felt safe then.
I held Lili tighter.
Maybe if I was eleven then
and if one of my friends had been around,
I would have been embarrassed, I guess.
But I was just a little kid
and nobody else was around.
Just me and Lili and Mama and the pigeons.
And outside the sun
getting bright and warm suddenly
like it’d been listening in.
MAMA
Some days, like today
and yesterday and probably
tomorrow—all my missing gets jumbled up inside of me.
You know honeysuckle talc powder?
Mama used to smell like that. She told me
honeysuckle’s really a flower but all I know
is the powder that smells like Mama.
Sometimes when the missing gets real bad
I go to the drugstore and before the guard starts
following me around like I’m gonna steal something
I go to the cosmetics lady and ask her if she has it.
When she says yeah, I say
Can I smell it to see if it’s the right one?
Even though the cosmetics ladies roll their eyes at me
they let me smell it.
And for those few seconds, Mama’s alive
again.
And I’m remembering
all kinds of good things about her like
the way she laughed at my jokes
even when they were dumb
and the way she sometimes just grabbed me
and hugged me before
I had a chance to get away.
And the way her voice always sounded good
and bad at the same time when she was singing
in the shower.
And her red pocketbook that always had some
tangerine Life Savers inside it for me and Lili
No, I say to the cosmetics lady. It’s not the right one.
And then I leave fast.
Before somebody asks to check my pockets
which are always empty ’cause I don’t steal.
LILI
And sometimes I combed Lili’s hair
braids mostly but sometimes a ponytail.
Lili would cry sometimes
the kind of crying where no tears came out.
Big faker.
I wouldn’t’ve hurt her head for a million dollars.
Some days
like today and yesterday and probably tomorrow
that’s all that’s on my mind
Mama and Lili.
Hair and honeysuckle talc powder.
FIRST
First Miss Edna turned the key and
opened her door for me
and said This ain’t much, but it’s all I have.
A living room, a kitchen with a table and three chairs,
a room with just a bed in it and a poster of Dr. J
when he still played for the Sixers and had an Afro.
You’ll sleep in here, she said.
Another room down the hall.
No need for you to ever go in there, she said.
I never did.
All along the living room walls there’s pictures
of her sons. Grown-up and gone now.
I used to fill up Miss Edna’s house with noise.
I used to talk all the time.
I used to laugh real loud and holler especially
when the Knicks won a game ’cause
that don’t happen too much.
Be quiet! Miss Edna said.
Hush, Lonnie, Miss Edna said.
Shhhh, Lonnie, Miss Edna said.
Children should be seen but not heard, Miss Edna said.
And my voice got quieter
and quieter
and quiet.
Now some days Miss Edna looks at me and says
You need to smile more, Lonnie.
You need to laugh sometimes
maybe make a little noise.
Where’s that boy I used to know,
the one who couldn’t be quiet?
COMMERCIAL BREAK
Last night this commercial came on TV. It was this white lady making a nice dinner for her husband. She made him some baked chicken with potatoes and gravy and some kind of greens—not collards, but they still looked real good. Everything looked so delicious, I just wanted to reach into that television and snatch a plate for myself. He gave her a kiss and then a voice came on saying He’ll love you for it and then the commercial went off.
I sat on Miss Edna’s scratchy couch wondering if that man and woman really ate that food or just threw it all away.
Now Ms. Marcus wants to know why I wrote that the lady is white and I say because it’s true. And Ms. Marcus says Lonnie, what does race have to do with it, forgetting that she asked us to use lots of details when we wrote. Forgetting that whole long talk she gave yesterday about the importance of description! I don’t say anything back to her, just look down at my arm. It’s dark brown and there’s a scab by my wrist that I don’t pick at if I remember not to. I look at my knuckles. They’re real dark too.
Outside it’s starting to rain and the way the rain comes down—tap, tapping against the window—gets me to thinking. Ms. Marcus don’t understand some things even though she’s my favorite teacher in the world. Things like my brown, brown arm. And the white lady and man with all that good food to throw away. How if you turn on your TV, that’s what you see—people with lots and lots of stuff not having to sit on scratchy couches in Miss Edna’s house. And the true fact is alotta those people are white. Maybe it’s that if you’re white you can’t see all the whiteness around you.
HAIKU
Today’s a bad day
Is that haiku? Do I look
like I even care?
GROUP HOME BEFORE MISS EDNA’S HOUSE
The monsters that come at night don’t
breathe fire, have two heads or long claws.
The monsters that come at night don’t
come bloody and half-dead and calling your name.
They come looking like regular boys
going through your drawers and pockets saying
You better not tell Counselor else I’ll beat you down.
The monsters that come at night snatch
the covers off your bed, take your
pillow and in the morning
steal your bacon when the cook’s back is turned
call themselves The Throwaway Boys, say
You one of us now.
When the relatives stop coming
When you don’t know where your sister is anymore
When every sign around you says
Gr
oup Home Rules: Don’t
do this and don’t do that
until it sinks in one rainy Saturday afternoon
while you’re sitting at the Group Home window
reading a beat-up Group Home book,
wearing a Group Home hand-me-down shirt
hearing all the Group Home loudness, that
you are a Throwaway Boy.
And the news just sits in your stomach
hard and heavy as Group Home food.
HALLOWEEN POEM
It’s Halloween
The first-graders put pumpkin pictures and ghost
drawings all up and down the hallways.
We don’t do none of that in fifth grade.
We don’t want to.
I mean, we’re not supposed to want to.
But sometimes
I do.
There’s these two guys I know who sometimes snatch
little kids’ trick-or-treat bags. That ain’t right.
Once when I was a little kid
this big teenager guy snatched mine.
If I’d a had a big brother,
he would’ve beat the guy down.
But I
don’t.