Poetry

It's no surprise that a book featuring almost thirty poems has a whole lot to say about poetry. In Bronx Masquerade, poems aren't just something Mr. Ward's students write down on paper; they represent the students coming out of their shells, shedding their masks and showing their true selves to themselves and their peers.

In the beginning, Wesley and Tyrone are pretty psyched to discover poetry because it sounds a whole lot like something they already enjoy—rap music:

I'm just about ready to sleep off the whole year when this teacher starts talking about poetry. And he rattles off a poem by some white guy named Dylan Thomas that sounds an awful lot like rap. Now, I know me some rap, and I start to thinking I should show Mr. Ward what rap is really all about. So I tell him I've got a poem I'd like to read. "Bring it on Friday," he says. (3.3)

As the story moves on, the interest in poetry goes deeper as all the kids in Mr. Ward's class discover the power of putting their words on paper. Janelle feels like a different person when she reads her poems; Porscha believes she can change people's minds about herself through poetry; and though Judianne denies the power of her words, her classmates know the truth. Time and again, we see poetry as a source of power in this book.

Why do poems have this effect on Mr. Ward's students? We're thinking it has to do with the openness of the form. While some poetry has formal rules, ultimately it's an open-ended writing style. Because of this, Mr. Ward's students can express themselves freely, focusing on what they want to say instead of being concerned with whether or not they're saying it the "right" way. As Porscha identifies, there's room for these kids to really share themselves in poetry:

The first time [Tyrone] got up there, I rolled my eyes like half the sisters in class, certain he was going to spout something lame or nasty about girls and sex, or gangsters. I mean, that's all we ever heard him talk about, right? But there was nothing lame about this poem, and none of it was about sex. It was about what's going on in the world, and about trying to make sense of it. It was a poem by somebody who really thinks about things, and that somebody turned out to be Tyrone. He made me change my mind about him that day. Maybe I can change people's minds about me too. It's worth a shot. (75.13)

In the end, all Mr. Ward's students learn that there's more to poetry than they ever thought before. And as they share their poems, they also realize there's more to their classmates than they'd previously recognized. In other words, poetry blows all the minds in this book.