For Every One by Jason Reynolds Summary Originally

For Every One by Jason Reynolds

Summary Originally performed at the Kennedy Center for the unveiling of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, and later as a tribute to Walter Dean Myers, this stirring and inspirational poem is New York Times bestselling author and National Book Award finalist Jason Reynolds’s rallying cry to the dreamers of the world. For Every One is just that: for every one. For every one person. For every one dream. But especially for every one kid. The kids who dream of being better than they are. Kids who dream of doing more than they almost dare to dream. Kids who are like Jason Reynolds, a self-professed dreamer. Jason does not claim to know how to make dreams come true; he has, in fact, been fighting on the front line of his own battle to make his own dreams a reality. He expected to make it when he was sixteen. Then eighteen. Then twenty -five. Now, some of those expectations have been realized. But others, the most important ones, lay ahead, and a lot of them involve kids, how to inspire them. All the kids who are scared to dream, or don’t know how to dream, or don’t dare to dream because they’ve NEVER seen a dream come true. Jason wants kids to know that dreams take time. They involve countless struggles. But no matter how many times a dreamer gets beat down, the drive and the passion and the hope never fully just having the dream is the start you need, or you won’t get anywhere anyway, and that is when you have to take a leap of faith. A pitch perfect graduation, baby, or love my kid gift. (Simon and Schuster)

What I do know is how it feels. How it feels when that spirit thing won’t stop raking the metal mug across your rib cage, clanging like a machine gun fired at a church bell, vibrating everything irreverent inside. Sounds like a prison revolt that only you can hear and feel. And nasty things are being said about the prison guard-that scared controlling oppressive part of you AND EVERYONE ELSE. If you are anything like me, you hope it never stops. You hope the bubbling never dies down and the yearning to break out and break through never simmers. You hope the voice that delivers the loudest whispers of what you envision never silences. That it never cowers behind fear and expectations that other people strap to your life like a backpack full of bricks (or books written by experts).

Because if it did-if it disappeared, if the voices vanished and you were no longer overtaken by the taunts of your own potential, no longer blinded by a perfect vision of your purpose, no longer engorged with passion-what would happen? WELL, I GUESS NOTHING. And to me, there is NOTHING SCARIER than NOTHING. Even when nothing seems to be going right or Nothing seems to be going right. I’d rather be bothered by the loud knocking on the door inside. Even though I answered years ago, the knocking continues. I’d rather my appetite be whet by a teaspoon of almost-there every now and then. (Page 39 -49)

Extension 1. What is theme of this poem? 2. Reynolds said he wrote this when he was a “twenty-something clinging tight to the nugget of thin air I referred to as my dream. ” What evidence is there of the author’s situation reflected in this poem? 3. Choose a simile, metaphor, alliteration, or repetition. Describe it and its purpose in the poem. 4. What is the effect of the occasional second-person “you” in the poem?