Carver Read online

  And, again, thanks to Pamela Espeland, my editor, my friend.

  PUBLISHER’S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Special thanks to Cynthia Williams, Chief Archivist at Tuskegee University; to Curtis Gregory and the George Washington Carver National Monument staff; to Al Zissler.

  LIST OF POEMS

  Arachis Hypogaea

  Baby Carver

  Bedside Reading

  Cafeteria Food

  Called

  Cercospora

  A Charmed Life

  Chemistry 101

  Chicken Talk

  Clay

  Coincidence

  Curve-Breaker

  Dawn Walk

  The Dimensions of the Milky Way

  Drifter

  Driving Dr. Carver

  Egyptian Blue

  Eureka

  Four a.m. in the Woods

  Friends in the Klan

  From an Alabama Farmer

  “God’s Little Workshop”

  Goliath

  Green-Thumb Boy

  House Ways and Means

  How a Dream Dies

  The Joy of Sewing

  The Lace-Maker

  The Last Rose of Summer

  Last Talk with Jim Hardwick

  Letter to Mrs. Hardwick

  Lovingly Sons

  Mineralogy

  Moton Field

  My Beloved Friend

  My Dear Spiritual Boy

  My People

  The Nervous System of the Beetle

  The New Rooster

  1905

  Odalisque

  Old Settlers’ Reunion

  Out of “Slave’s Ransom”

  Out of the Fire

  A Patriarch’s Blessing

  The Penol Cures

  The Perceiving Self

  The Prayer of Miss Budd

  Poultry Husbandry

  Prayer of the Ivory-Handled Knife

  Professor Carver’s Bible Class

  Ruellia Noctiflora

  A Ship Without a Rudder

  The Sweet-Hearts

  Veil-Raisers

  Washboard Wizard

  Watkins Laundry and Apothecary

  The Wild Garden

  The Year of the Sky-Smear

  PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS

  Tuskegee University Archives

  P. H. Polk portrait of Carver, p. 2; George & Jim Carver, p. 12; Carver as a young man, p. 16; Miss Budd’s art class, p.23; Carver at Iowa State, p. 25; Carver painting, p. 32; Carver at Tuskegee, p. 33; Laboratory at Tuskegee, p. 39; Carver working in a lab, p. 45; Carver in the field, p. 48; Moses Carver, p. 55; portrait of Carver, p. 67 Carver painting, p. 69; Carver in the field, p. 71; Carver as an old man, p. 82; Carver reading, p. 90; Carver and Curtis, p. 92.

  National Park Service, Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site

  Photos by Eric Long, Courtesy Museum Management Program, NPS

  Slate (TUIN 863), p. 15; spectacles and case (TUIN 1519), p. 42; paint sample (TUIN 285), p. 50; sampler (section) (TUIN 409), p. 56; vasculum (specimen case) (TUIN 1528), p. 74; pocket watch (TUIN 1518) and Bible (TUIN 629), p. 75; peanut specimen (TUIN 1811), p. 89.

  George Washington Carver National Monument

  The Milholland family, p. 21

  Iowa State University

  The Faculty at Tuskegee, p. 35

  National Archives

  Jesup wagon, p. 47

  Library of Congress

  Booker T. Washington, p. 61; the KKK, p. 81

  Al Zissler, Carver, and Jim Hardwick, p. 87, Al Zissler

  Melvin Moton Nelson, p. 97, Marilyn Nelson

  Commemorative Carver Stamps, p. 98, Sanford L. Byrd, ESPER

  NOTES ON FIRST PUBLICATION

  “Out of ‘Slave’s Ransom,’” “Prayer of the Ivory-Handled Knife,” “Watkins Laundry and Apothecary” first appeared in Teacup. “Drifter” first appeared in The Poetry Review. “The Perceiving Self” first appeared in The New Breadloaf Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, edited by Michael Collier and Stanley Plumley (Middlebury College Press, 1999). “Washboard Wizard” and “The Prayer of Miss Budd” first appeared in Beyond the Frontier, edited by E. Ethelbert Miller (Black Classics Press, 2000). “Four a.m. in the Woods” first appeared as a broadside published by the Aralia Press (1998). “Cafeteria Food,” “Curve-Breaker,” “My People,” and “Arachis Hypogaea” first appeared in The Gettysburg Review. “Green-Thumb Boy,” “Cercospora,” and “The Nervous System of the Beetle” first appeared in Gulfcoast. “A Charmed Life” first appeared in Literary Cavalcade. “Odalisque,” “Chemistry 101,” and “The Lace-Maker” first appeared in Poetrynet. “Bedside Reading” and “Coincidence” first appeared in Spirituality and Health. “The Wild Garden,” “Mineralogy,” “Poultry Husbandry,” “House Ways and Means,” and “‘God’s Little Workshop’” first appeared in New Letters. “Ruellia Noctiflora” first appeared in The Cortland Review. “Goliath” first appeared in The Frost Place Anthology (Cavankerry Press). “Veil-Raisers” first appeared in The Emily Dickinson Society Journal. “Old Settlers’ Reunion,” “A Ship Without a Rudder,” “From an Alabama Farmer,” “Clay,” “Egyptian Blue,” “Professor Carver’s Bible Class,” and “Friends in the Klan” first appeared in The Connecticut Review. The author is grateful to the editors of these publications.

  MARILYN NELSON, poet laureate of the state of Connecticut (2002–2006), is a three-time National Book Award finalist and has won the Anisfield–Wolf Book Award and the Poets’ Prize. Dr. Nelson lives in East Haddam, Connecticut.

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