Childhood

“Childhood” is a poem by Margaret Walker, a decorated poet, novelist, and writer, who wrote novels and poems that “[affirmed] the African folk roots of [B]lack American life” (“Margaret Walker.” The Poetry Foundation.). Her poems often draw upon folk tales of characters who struggled against obstacles they somehow overcame, surviving in spite of the difficulties. Her most famous novel, Jubilee, was a historical piece of literature that followed a family of slaves during the Civil War. Walker did not shy away from difficult topics—slavery, injustice, economic hardship—that particularly affected the Black communities in America. Her writing served as a mouthpiece for the injustices Black Americans had to live through during the 19th and 20th century.

“Childhood,” which was originally published in 1942 in her first full-length collection, For My People, explores themes of poor working conditions, famine, economic hardship, and a difficult life. Also represented in the poem is the Southern culture in which Walker grew up. Much of her work is inspired by Walker’s time in the South, illustrates the pain those people endured, and ultimately advocates for change. “Childhood” is such a poem. While most children may remember moments of happiness from their time as a child growing up, Walker’s speaker remembers the opposite: Their childhood was riddled with fear, hard work, peril, and death.

Poet Biography

Margaret Walker (1915-1998) was born in Birmingham, Alabama and grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana. Walker’s father was a Methodist minister who was born in Jamaica. Walker inherited her love of literature from her father. Her mother, however, was a musician who loved jazz and often read poetry to Walker. Her parents greatly influenced her development as a poet and writer. By age 11, Walker was reading the poems of Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen. Walker earned a college degree from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Walker met Langston Hughes in 1932, a meeting that would prove to be a pivotal moment in Walker’s career. Hughes encouraged Walker to write poems, and her first poem was published just two years later in 1934.

Walker published her first full-length collection of poetry For My People in 1942, which won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. She was the first Black woman to receive this award. Walker, whose great grandmother was a slave in Georgia, was inspired to write poetry and fiction that called for the liberation of the Black woman. Widely anthologized, Walker’s poems were not written for a specific audience. Rather, she believed that “[w]riters should not write exclusively for [B]lack or white audiences, but most inclusively” since she believed that “it [was] the business of all writers to write about the human condition” (“Margaret Walker.” The Poetry Foundation.).

Walker’s historical novel Jubilee (1966), which took her 30 years to write, is considered the text upon which her reputation rests. The novel takes place during and after the Civil War and is centered on a slave family. The novel, much like Walker’s poetry, calls for a unity of Black Americans. Walker's poems, particularly those from her first collection, are defined as long ballads in which she paints portraits of unique characters. Highly influenced by the Southern landscape of her upbringing, Walker’s works stand as an early voice for Black Americans in the mid-20th century and celebrate the heritage of Black culture.

Walker went on to receive a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa, and she taught at several universities, including Jackson State College in Mississippi. She was the recipient of many awards and honors, including a fellowship from Houghton Mifflin and a Rosenwald fellowship. Perhaps most influential on Walker’s writing career was her relationship with Richard Wright. This friendship was mutually beneficial, with Walker providing valuable feedback and help on Wright’s iconic novel Native Son (1940). In 1970, Walker published Prophets for a New Day, which was a collection of what she called her civil rights poems.

A highly decorated poet and writer, Walker was awarded many honors, including the Lifetime Achievement Award of the College Language Association and a fellowship from the Fulbright Commission. Walker was inducted into the African American Literary Hall of Fame in 1988.

Poem Text

Walker, Margaret. “Childhood.” 1942. The Poetry Foundation.

Summary

Walker’s poem “Childhood” explores a specific memory in the past. The poem opens with the speaker remembering the “red miners” (Line 1) who would come and go every day from the nearby mine. The speaker describes these miners, what they carried (“carbide lamps,” [Line 2]), and how even the location where they worked was “dyed with red dust” (Line 4) from the mines.

The speaker confesses that they met these miners repeatedly at night, indicating that the speaker would often be out during dangerous nighttime hours. The miners were dissatisfied with their hard, long working hours (“grumbling undermining all their words,” [Line 8]) and their presumably low pay.

In the second stanza, the speaker shares more about the area where they grew up (“low cotton country,” [Line 9]), indicating that they lived in the American South. The next lines describe the natural scenery at night and how the “moonlight hovered over ripe haystacks” (Line 10). What follows this seemingly beautiful memory is a tragic realization (“with famine, terror, flock, and plague near by” [Line 12]), indicating that life in this location was difficult. The poem closes with the image of the land being washed away and what remained were negative emotions (“sentiment and hatred,” [Line 13]) that permeated the place the speaker was raised.