Joyce Carol Thomas

Joyce Carol Thomas Poems

Joyce Carol Thomas Biography

Joyce Carol Thomas (born May 25, 1938) is an African-American poet, playwright, motivational speaker, and author of more than 30 children's books. Thomas was born in Ponca City, Oklahoma, the fifth of nine children in a family of cotton pickers. In 1948 they moved to Tracy, California, to pick vegetables. She learned Spanish from Mexican migrant workers and earned a B.A. in Spanish from San Jose State University. She took night classes in education at Stanford University, while raising four children, and received the master's degree in 1967. For her 1982 novel Marked by Fire, Thomas won a National Book Award in category Children's Fiction (paperback)[a] and an American Book Award. Thomas has been one of three to five finalists for the Coretta Scott King Award thrice, in 1984 for Bright Shadow, in 1994 for Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea, and in 2009 for The Blacker the Berry in 2009. Part of the American Library Association program, the King Award annually recognizes the "most distinguished portrayal of African American experience in literature for children or teens". She also received a New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year Award[clarification needed] and an Outstanding Woman of the 20th Century Award.[clarification needed] She resides in Berkeley, California.)

The Best Poem Of Joyce Carol Thomas

Biscuit Brown

I gather loganberries
From the trailing bush
Dancing prickly sweet
In my sunny backyard

I am biscuit brown
Brown as a biscuit
All warm and waiting
For berries
That I carry
To the kitchen and can

When the berries in the jar
Are biscuit ready
I fix a cup of tea
Then spoon out biscuit jelly
For biscuit brown me

Joyce Carol Thomas Comments