14. Poetry · Verse Novel | Our Voices Break Open

Street Love by Walter Dean Myers

Annotation:

An African American Romeo and Juliet find the courage to fight for love on the tough streets of New York City.

Recommendation:

Street Love is a dazzling jewel in the young adult literary canon. The creativity of Walter Dean Myers' structural craftsmanship, combined with the imaginative power of his poetry make this urban Romeo and Juliet a rare and memorable YA classic.

"In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny"

-- Wm. Shakespeare

Harlem is not an easy place

To grow old, and so the young

Are everywhere,

Pouring from the buses, city dancing

To the rhythms of the street,

City dancing to the frantic spin of life

In the fast lane.

Both of Myers' protagonists live in Harlem, but straight-A, high school basketball hero, Damien Battle, and tough, streetwise, Junice Ambers belong to completely different worlds.

High achiever, Damien has been carefully groomed by his mother for a college career. Junice’s mother has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for drug dealing. While used to fending for herself, Junice now struggles to protect her younger sister, Melissa, and the grandmother they call, Miss Ruby. When Damien and Junice meet and fall in love, they must reconcile the differences in their lives.

I had become a shining star,

a burning nova
Exploded with love
Flying through an endlessly
Expanding universe
Away from the me that was
Toward a me that is beyond
Understanding.

The classic cautionary tale of warring families, forbidden love, and tragic misfortune stems from a tradition of love stories dating back -- well before Shakespeare's day -- to antiquity. Of particular note is Pyramus and Thisbe. The morbid plot describes the mishaps of two secret lovers who, in their confusion and passion, both mistakenly believe the other to be dead, and commit suicide. Pyramus and Thisbe is not a tragedy of thwarted love but rather, a pitiful comedy of errors. The innocent young protagonists lack the stature of truly tragic figures. The youths' only "tragic flaw," if you can call it that, is their youth. They act rashly, but their accidental deaths come at their own hand, having been blinded by the righteous light of their own passion.

Shakespeare's poetic version heightens and sublimates the self-destructive nature of the young lovers' relationship: "These violent delights have violent ends / And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, / Which as they kiss consume." Myers manages to re-frame this issue in the contemporary context of intra-cultural prejudice and discrimination. Both Damien and Junice are warned by family not to "cross the tracks." They are told that committing to the relationship is suicidal. They each give up on their own future if they choose to hold on to each other.

It would be a terrible thing for you to

Surrender your life for some girl that I

Hate and I do hate her if she is going to

Ruin your life and after all you are my
Son and that has meaning. You have a life
And you just can't leave it.

Walter Dean Myers has refashioned this ancient drama into a verse novel that is extraordinary and unforgettable. Stylistically, Street Love is closer to the lyrical variety of A Midsummer Night's Dream than the sturdy, wordy, repetitive iambic pentameter in Romeo and Juliet.

Myers ingeniously manipulates storyline and character through structure and formatting. Each player takes a turn at center stage. Each with a distinct voice. Shifts in style inform shifts in the narrative's perspective. Myers seems to pull from whatever sources are appropriate to the dramatic moment -- hip hop, blues, rhyming slang, rap. As the cascading monologues of mothers, sisters, neighbors, classmates and caseworkers are presented, we are invited to inspect each point of view and construct our own understanding of the story. The book's multi-perspective, multi-dimensional, theatre-in-the-round quality is a unique achievement.

It is not character, plot or structure that link the 134-page novel, Street Love to the grandeur and emotional force of Romeo and Juliet. It is the imaginative power of poetry that makes Myers’ work a sparkling reflection of Shakespeare’s shining, star-crossed original.

Street Love makes a significant contribution to YA literature. It fulfills the highest expectations of the verse novel genre in that the power of Myers’ poetry -- distilled emotion, pared down to its essence – captures the emotional intensity of adolescence. Myers' word images, associations and metaphors are at once remarkably strange and strangely familiar. The poetry is impeccable: accessible, authentic, evocative and expansive.

"Then I defy you, stars!"

-- Wm. Shakespeare

Can you become

The hope I need? Can you help me be

More than it is written in my future

Or past? Is there another me to find?

Myers' classical update is found to be extremely relevant to the teen experience. Street Love interacts with the following issues: peer pressure, testing boundaries, interest in the opposite sex, money, divorce, single parents, grandparents, younger siblings, race, social identity, neighborhood, and securing a future.

Avoiding the trap of the now outmoded, West Side Story, Myers’ spoken-wordsmithing gives his urban Romeo and Juliet an immediacy as well as a timeless originality. Damien and Junice obviously start to sense the cosmic echo in their contemporary plight and they strive to express their recognition of the larger forces at work. The events of the story bring them to self-awareness -- both as people and as characters in an ancient, ongoing drama. Thus, they are able to draw on lessons learned from other Romeos and Juliets.

Unlike Pyramus and Thisbe of old, Myers' "young and proud and Black" protagonists possess the literary street smarts to know what it will take to survive. They do not leave the stage as iterations of the Bard's reckless and confused Romeo and Juliet, but as Damien and Junice -- two strong individuals coming into their own as young adults. They have survived the passion of their own play, and as a couple, they are poised to "leap into the darkness of whatever life will bring." The emotional cliff-hanger that concludes the novel, reasserts a critical dynamic in the archetypal tale of forbidden romance: love never dies.

It was the becoming that he loved
The becoming of him and her,
Of Junis and Damien, and what more they
Could be together than he had ever dreamed
Alone.

Creatively conceived, skillfully crafted and impeccably composed -- Street Love is a rare and remarkable young adult literary treasure.

Nomination: Yes!

Genre Classification: Poetry/ Verse, Multicultural, Romance

Citation: Myers, Walter Dean. Street Love. New York: Amistad, 2006. Print.

Walter Dean Myers biography
http://www.walterdeanmyers.net/bio.html