Ain't Burned All the Bright Review

Module 3: New Poetry Book

 

Ain’t Burned All the Bright by Jason Reynolds artwork by Jason Griffin

Bibliography
Reynolds, J. (2022). Ain’t burned all the bright (J. Griffin, Illus.). atheneum, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division. ISBN 978154439467

Summary
Created during the Covid-19 pandemic, this book is an inside view of what life was like during this exceptional time. The poem spans the entirety of a moleskin notebook, with words sparsely sprinkled on each page. The pages are unnumbered, but it looks like it is a few hundred pages, some with words and some only with art. The poem is divided into three sections called Breath One, Breath Two, and Breath Three-a message in themselves of the protests that took place during 2020. At the end of the book is a brief dialogue between the author and the artist who collaborated on the project which gives insight into how they created it. A noteworthy piece of information discussed is that Reynolds gave Griffin free reign on how to break up the poem, so it matched with the art, rather than fitting the art to the poem. This agreement is tangible throughout the poem as the mixed-media art on each page is equally important to the story and message as the words.

Analysis
The difficulty in analyzing this particular book is the power the visuals play in the storyline. Although the poem can stand alone, the creators’ collaboration truly set the art as a meaningful participant in the poem. For example, following the lines “…the woman on the news saying/ another woman has just been --- ---” and “another man has been brutally--- ---" Griffin placed textured blacked out pages for the spread. These visual breaks throughout the poem are significant and their placement acts as whitespace would in a traditional poem.

The poem is from the perspective of a young boy in a house with a brother, sister, mom, and dad. The poem tells of his overwhelming fear and isolation despite being surrounded by people because “my brother/ won’t look up from his video game,” his sister “talks to her homegirl/ through the screen of her phone/ like it’s the screen of the front door,” his dad is sick in the back room, while his mom watches the persistent horrors of the news; all the while he wonders “why the news won’t / change the story/ and why the story won’t/ change into something new/ instead of the every-hour rerun/ about how we won’t change the world/…or the way we treat each other.”  The poem’s lines are matched with dark images with lots of red focuses that create a tense visual that matches the tension in his mind. This tension is broken when there is finally some connection between the family members, and he finds his family interacting with him. He begins to see hope in many places like “maybe oxygen masks/ are stocked in the / books on the shelf/ my mother’s been begging us to read.” The images in this portion change to brighter, colorful art pieces full of hope.

Reynolds repeats several lines throughout the poem. The first set is his wondering why the news and the people don’t change, and the second is “in through the nose/ out through the mouth.” The juxtaposition of these two repeated sections amplifies both the anxiety and fear during 2020’s plethora of frightening events, and also the methods of coping many people had to adopt.

Throughout the pages, the creators chose to often only put one line per page which created a compelling struggle to turn the page, but also a desire to linger on the art. This dynamic mirrors the conflict that was so abundant in 2020’s political/human rights fights, within households, and individuals. The complexity, fear, and hope that the pandemic created throughout every aspect of life is beautifully captured in Ain’t Burned All the Bright.

Excerpt

my mother says not to go in there
so I keep peeking
through a crack in the door
and when he sees me he smiles
because the fever
ain’t burned all
all his bright up yet
and he tells me he will be wonderful
in a few weeks
and that we’ll go back to squeeze-hugging
and roughhousing and he’ll be able
to get through his good-bad jokes
without the punchline getting
stuck in his throat jabbing and hooking
and he says not to worry
…
And [he] turns back to the television
That seems to say too much

Activity
This book is ideal for high school students to read, as Covid-19 was during their middle school/upper elementary years, so they were greatly affected by it and can remember it quite well. Now that there has been some time between the lockdown, skyrocketing death counts, and protests, it would be great to have students reflect on what that time was like for them. They can create art to express the fears that they had or the trivial things that gave them hope, like the hint of a smile from their mom.

Reviews
From Kirkus Reviews: “The art is sometimes spare and monochrome before shifting to a bright and striking palette as Griffin deploys aesthetics that enliven the rich flow and rhythm of Reynolds’ words. The two skillfully go back and forth like rap duos of old, each with a distinct voice that enriches the other. The result is an effective critique of the ways we’ve failed as a society to care for one another. By “Breath Three,” however, a complicated optimism shines through for a family that perseveres through closeness and connection despite what is broadcast from their TV. While grounded in 2020, many of the issues touched on explicitly are very much not over and not even new, making this remarkable work both timely and timeless. Artful, cathartic, and most needed.”

From School Library Journal: “For everyone who has felt the weight of grief and fear or the comfort of love and family in the last two years, this is a must read.” 

Awards
Caldecott Honor, 2023