Gwendolyn
Brooks
Review by C.Sullivan
May,1999
Gwendolyn Brooks,
renowned poet, portrays the socioeconomic struggles of African Americans
in her work, as she herself endured hardships in becoming a successful
African American female poet. She herself grew up in the days of
segregation and witnessed throughout her life description of how blacks
really lived.
Gwendolyn
Brooks born to David and Keziah Brooks on June 7, 1917 in Topeka,
Kansas. After being alive for only a month, she and her family moved to
Chicago, where she has lived all of her life. At the age of thirteen, she
published a poem in the magazine American Childhood. She attended
several high schools ranging from predominately white to all black, and
finally an integrated school known as Englewood High School. She
graduated from Wilson Junior College in 1936. On September 17, 1939,
Brooks married Henry Blakely. She had two children, Henry, born in
1940, and Nora, born in 1951.
In 1941, Brooks
and her husband attended a poetry workshop, where she began to receive
recognition for her poetry. In 1943, she won an award at theMidwestern
Writer's Conference. In 1946, she was selected as one of "Ten Young
Women of the Year" by Mademoiselle and she won a one thousand dollar
award from the Academy of arts and Letter. Brooks finally was becoming
a full-fledged writer.
In observing Brooks'
work as an inspirational poet, you must consider the subject of her poetry.
She takes the everyday lives of blacks and their constant struggles
and transcends her message with creative style. Brooks tells us how
her themes or "raw materials" are made into
works of art by the poet (Brooks,
95)
.....no
real artist is going to be content with offering raw materials.
The negro
poet's most urgent duty at present is to polish his
technique,
his way of presenting his truths and his beauties, that
these
be more insinuating, and therefore more overwhelming.
Thus the poem, The Chicago
Defender Sends a Black Man to Little Rock,examines a specific struggle
of the black race. The poem is written in the occasion of the integration
of Little Rock Central High School in 1957. It shows the people representing
a typical town not only occupied by bigotry of whites and oppression of
blacks. However, the town is divided amongst the whites and blacks
and bigotry is prevalent "on the faces on the calm, the serene, the faces
of white madonnas." A reporter once wrote: "The South suffers from
two mythologies. One is self-created--- the idea of a vanished Golden
Age of cavaliers, and belles, elegance in the mansions, and happy, young
(and black) folks rollin' on the little cabin floor. The second is
the mythology of movies and TV--- the south of bigots, sadists, and redneck
sheriffs." The reporter in this poem expects to find a town of bigots,
but finds the people to believe in their own self-created myth. However,
neither accounts are accurate, but instead just a town of people.
In observing
the structure of the poem, you must note that it is clearly divided into
three sections, each showing similar , but, rather unique characteristics.
The first section(ll. 1-18), is divided into five stanzas in which the
meter is iambic tetrameter. The next section is quite different.
It has no definite meter. It is less intensive, rather soft spoken.
Its lines are broken anywhere from 3-18 syllables, and there is no
apparent rthtyme scheme. In the final section (42-60), once again
returns to iambic tetrameter, but like the second section, it is soft spoken
with less obvious accents on words or phases. As you can see, it
is quite a powerful work.
Another
poem is Lovely Love. Here, in sonnet form, she discusses the
forbidden love of two young people, who admist their own personal struggle
find love. It is a mixture of "romantic, realistic, and mythically
religious diction" (Kent, 46). The example of romantic is "hyacinth darkness",
being that it is secluded and private for the couple. However, the
realistic statement to the previous one is "Let it be stairways and
a splintery box", meaning that will have to do. Finally the example
given for mythically religious diction is dicussed in the "birthright of
our love", giving the couple an almost spiritual connection to one another.
To really
get the feel of the suffering of the blacks, you must read the poem The
Bean Eaters. In The Bean Eaters, you get the image of
an old black couple who eat beans because they can afford nothing else
to eat. Because of this, "dinner is a casual affair" (Brooks,
16). Nothing special, just going on another day. Though poor
and suffering, they continue to live and keep doing their thing.
They are old and all they have left are memories.
In observing
the rhyme scheme of the poem. one notes that it jumps around. In
the first stanza it is a-a-b-a, the next stanza is b-c-d-c, and the final
stanza is e-f-g-h-f. There is quite a bit of repition as to get the
reader to feel the constant struggle of the couple to continue on living,
as each
day is a carbon copy of the day
before ( ex. remembering; remembering).
Aside
from the racial struggles as seen in Little Rock and the spiritual connection
of the black man lies an overall theme in Brooks' poetry. Blacks
admist their struggle survive and live another day trying to appease their
needs and make the best of their situation. Through her life as well
as the blacks in America, Brooks like so many other Black poets, tell the
story of the black man, woman, and child. Not only has she served
as an inspiration to the blacks in America, but to blacks around the world.
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