Nancy D. Tolson is an assistant professor at Illinois State University where she teaches both Black and Children’s Literature. Her publications include essays in Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, African American review, and theafricanamerican.com. Her creative writing can be found in Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering and Tales of Africa (1999). She and her husband are currently being raised by their three children Kenneth, Kinnethia and Kindyl.

These excellent poems draw on both children’s story telling and the African-American experience.

Momma’s Boys

They moved the body
What?
They moved the body yesterday
Where were you suppose to be?
At the house waiting for Momma.
Why weren’t you there?
She never came. So I went looking for her.
Why did you go there?
That’s where she was, wasn’t it?
What did you see?
They were digging her up.
Who was?
The white people on the hill, George, Abe, and Truman.
Where did they put her?
In the trunk and drove off. She was mad.
Did you follow them?
Yeah.
Where’d they go?
Behind the gate!
Then what?
They tried to bury her again.
Where?
Behind the gate in front of the house.
Where?
In front of the house, behind their gate.
The front?
Yep, I saw them.
What did you do?
Nothing.
Nothing? Why didn’t you do something?
Momma took care of them.
How?
Thunder struck them.
All three?
All three.
What did you do?
I rolled them in the hole they dug for her.
Where’s Momma now?
In the car.
In the trunk?
No, she drove me here.

Night Visitor

I smelled Daddy last night in my room.
That old cologne he wore filled my nose.
Jimmy smelled him this morning when he got up.
He woke me up with his smell.
He sat and rocked in his rocking chair in the corner.
He said I reminded him of Momma.
He laughed, missing those front teeth.
He said that I even snored like her.
I asked why didn’t he just look at Momma
Since she was dead too
He said cause Momma wasn’t there.