1. For Every One by Jason Reynolds

2. 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)

4. 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).

5. 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)

6. Extension 1. What is the 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?