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  • Etched in Clay: The Life of Dave, Enslaved Potter and Poet

Etched in Clay: The Life of Dave, Enslaved Potter and Poet

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Etched in Clay: The Life of Dave, Enslaved Potter and Poet

"As  William Faulkner once wrote, 'The past isn't dead and buried. In fact,
it isn't  even past.' We do not need to recite here the history of racial
injustice in  this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many
of the disparities  that exist in the African-American community today can be
directly traced to  inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that
suffered under the brutal  legacy of slavery and Jim Crow."
-- Barack Obama, speech, "A More Perfect  Union," March 18, 2008
"But  they're not yours, they are my own
And  I am never broken"
--  Jewel, "Hands"
Dave,  1826
"...I  unbrick the door.
Little  John hands me the jars
one  by one,
warm  and shining
in  the rising sun.
Doctor  Landrum says,
'See  that green?
Have  you seen a color
shimmer  like that?'
He  holds my jar,
the  big one with the lip
and  glaze dripping
down  the sides.
'Now,  that's a jar,'
he  says,
forgetting  it was me
who  dug the clay,
and  centered the mound,
and  pushed my weight
against  the wheel,
forgetting  it was me
who  rolled the clay
for  the handles
thick  and solid.
See  the thumbprints
on  the sides?
Those  are from my hands."


Dave  was a slave. He was purchased at age seventeen for business purposes
and was  taught the trade of pottery -- everything from digging the clay to
throwing and  glazing and firing the pots he created for his white owners.
Dave  was an artist, an extraordinary potter. And Dave, who learned to read
and write,  was also a poet who etched his short verses into the jars he
crafted -- an  extraordinarily dangerous thing for a slave to be doing, for it
was against the  law down there in South Carolina.
A  number of books have now been written about Dave who, two hundred years
ago,  would have been twelve or so.
"...And  if some day
this  jar cracks,
my  word will stay,
etched  in the shards."


ETCHED  IN CLAY is the story in verse of Dave's life in slavery (and just
beyond). The  book contains beautiful woodcut illustrations created by the
author, and deep  reddish-brown (clay colored) endpapers. It is a book that
tells the very ugly  story of what it was to be enslaved. Of having your wife
sold away from you as  if you were both livestock. Of longing and missing
and one day marrying again.  And then having that wife also sold away from
you. Of being creative and  innovative and successful, but having another reap
the rewards of that  creativity and innovation because somehow the white
Christian folk of the day  could perfect such amazing contortions of their
minds and their hearts so as to  see you as a depreciable business asset rather
than a human being and  artist.
And,  finally, of being an old man freed from bondage. Of having the luxury
– like a  human, rather than the family dog – of possessing a  surname:
David  Drake, 1866
"Go  on the road,
a  one-legged old man,
like  me?
No,  my friend.
But  I beg you,
please,
wherever  you go,
look  for my loved ones..."

ISBN: 978-1-60060-451-5        144p.         Ages 10 and up

Recommended by: Richie Partington, MLIS, Librarian, California USA Richie's Picks _https://richiespicks.com_ (https://richiespicks.com/)

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