Blacks

by Gwendolyn Brooks

Here is a necessary collection of poetry for admirers of words and treasurers of literary beauty. Spanning more than 30 years, this collection of literary masterpieces by the venerable Ms. Gwendolyn Brooks, arguably Illinois' most beloved Poet Laureate and Chicago's elder black literary stateswoman, ""Blacks"" includes all of Ms. Brooks' critically acclaimed writings. Within its covers is the groundbreaking ""Annie Allen,"" which earned her the Pulitzer Prize in 1950. There is also the sweepingly beautiful and finely crafted ""A Street in Bronzeville,"" a highly anticipated and lauded poetic treasure that spoke volumes for this great poet's love of black people, Chicago's Black community, and even the community of the world. ""Blacks"" includes a special treat, ""Maud Martha,"" Brooks' only novel.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Race, African American, Fiction, African American Literature, Class

512 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Annie Allen and one of the most celebrated Black poets. She also served as consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress—the first Black woman to hold that position. She was the poet laureate for the state of Illinois for over thirty years, a National Women’s Hall of Fame inductee, and the recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her works include We Are Shining, Bronzeville Boys and Girls, A Street in Bronzeville, In the Mecca, The Bean Eaters, and Maud Martha.

Reviews

[Brown Girl Reading · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a phenomenal collection of poetry spanning about thirty years of Gwendolyn Brooks's writing. It even includes the short novel Maud Martha and Annie Allen, the collection of poetry that she won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1950. Brooks was genius with the words - lyrical, meaningful, and cultural she put the emphasis just where it should be. I definitely think this is a must read and addition to those who love and collect Brooks's work. For those that are discovering Brooks and Poetry, this is a fantastic place to start. For me the ultimate surprise was that Maud Martha was included because I wasn't expecting that. It was the cherry on top. This is my first 5-star read of 2016 and I'm pleased that it's come so soon in the year. Motivated to continue reading the rest of Brooks's work because there are still more to get to....

[Press · Rating 5 out of 5]

Better than Wallace Stevens, so five stars.

[Tauwan Patterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the words of Beyoncé Knowles-Carter “10s, 10s, 10s, across the board!” A vital, compelling, and awe inspiring collection of poetry that also works as a great introduction to Mrs. Brooks Pulitzer Prize winning work. Before this my familiarity with her work, unfortunately, was only with her amazing classic “We Real Cool” poem (which is included here). She got me with this collection of Black Excellence. Definitely reading a few of the collections quoted here in the not too distant future. Highly recommend. Even if you are not a Poet or normally read poet collections or don’t read them often!

[Amelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell


I hold my honey and I store my bread
In little jars and cabinets of my will.
I label clearly, and each latch and lid
I bid, Be firm till I return from hell.
I am very hungry. I am incomplete.
And none can tell when I may dine again.
No man can give me any word but Wait,
The puny light. I keep eyes pointed in;
Hoping that, when the devil days of my hurt
Drag out to their last dregs and I resume
On such legs as are left me, in such heart
As I can manage, remember to go home,
My taste will not have turned insensitive
To honey and bread old purity could love.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This tome's got pretty much everything GB wrote except, unfortunately (or fortunately? some of the later stuff isn't so great), all the later stuff she published with black presses after she left Harper Collins. It's even got the novel, Maud Martha, she published back in the day, which is average as a novel though fascinating if you really like Gwendolyn Brooks. Which I do. Read it and be in awe of a woman who could live life in Jim Crow Chicago, write life in Jim Crow Chicago, and continually express herself in punchy formal poems.

[Jerome Berglund · Rating 5 out of 5]

An essential collection including her first five short works and only novel in their entirety as they were initially published. The individual chapbooks are largely out of print or prohibitively expensive, other presently available collections issued do not contain the important contexts or exhibit pieces within illuminating larger narratives as they were originally intended. This is the definitive (as well as most cost-effective) way to engage with Brooks’ seminal writing as she meant it should be consumed. Enthusiastically recommended.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

I dig Gwendolyn Brooks. I really do. I like the book cover. I like the title. But she's hit or miss with me. Half the poems I dig, I dig until I've hit in the middle of the earth. The others are not over my head (doesn't mean I get them), because being over my head means I still have some emotional reaction. I'm just cold. There's no reaction. So overall, buy it for the prose and half the poetry, because getting 50% dope poems is still better than 100% wack ones.

[Marina · Rating 5 out of 5]

"But the sun was shining, and some of the people in the world had been left alive, and it was doubtful whether the ridiculousness of man would ever completely succeed in destroying the world - or, in fact, the basic equanimity of the least and commonest flower: for would its kind not come up again in the spring?"

[amf · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection shows the breadth of Brooks’s amazing, dynamic voice. “In the Mecca” has always been an personal favorite, however, all are gems. Highly recommend visiting sites that have recordings of Brooks reading her work.. especially one UPenn features in a poetry podcast discussing Brooks and Etheridge Knight.

[DORIS · Rating 5 out of 5]

IAM BLACK IAM PROUD SAY IT OUT LOUD YESS IAM BLACK AND IAM PROUD👊🏽👍🏽😎💯😷

[jane bro · Rating 4 out of 5]

i think i found my poetry soulmate <3

here are some of my favorites:

"the old-marrieds"
"hunchback girl: she thinks of heaven"
"a song in the front yard"
"the preacher: ruminates behind the sermon"
"when you have forgotten sunday: the love story
"queen of the blues"

and

"we real cool"

[Allison Church · Rating 4 out of 5]

I normally dislike poetry and I never heard of this poet when I signed up for the class this is for. But I enjoyed her work and she was brilliant.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brooks poetry feels so hit or miss to me. She, along with William Carlos Williams and some of the others who would come to be known as Imagists, sometimes feels too simple, too straightforward, too tidy and neat. The problem comes to the fore with how dated rhyme schemes feel to contemporary ears, so I can't get mad at her over that, it just really deflates a lot of the power some of these poems have. I've seen poetry, especially from Shakespeare, which I didn't even realize rhymed (until I read it aloud), but with much of Brooks (especially her earlier work), it sticks out so harshly. Perhaps it's all a matter of exposure therapy, like it was for me to really get the haiku poets, but I'm not sure.

In this book, we have a great variety of Brooks' work, and I think she actually shines brightest in the novella which was included, Maud Martha. All of the chapters of that novella were short, bite sized treats, but a few of them blew me away with their economy of words. The novella really felt like a prose poem throughout, and especially in those exceptional chapters. I also think that the novella conveyed her pathos and political message much more convincingly than some of the poems which felt more on-the-nose.

To explain this transition, see a short close-reading I wrote for my poetry class about her:

It’s easy to notice a shift in Gwendolyn Brooks’ use of form, especially how that impacted her potential audience, but much stayed the same, particularly the understated nature of her political narratives. Rather, the main shift from her early work to her later is a subtle one, from a descriptive tone of voice (which many early critics mistook for complacency) to a prescriptive tone of voice.

Brooks’ early poetry brought attention to racial and gender issues, but, like the peaceful protests of the early Civil Rights era, it preferred to let injustice display itself through violence against a passive, non-resisting victim. For example, “the mother” is a deeply political early poem, but it diplomatically toes the line of decorum, emphasizing through description the complexity of abortion. Using a narrative voice instead of a personal address to the reader grants Brooks distance with which to detach herself from the speaker. As such, we cannot be certain which phrases the narrator speaks are ironic, and which are views honestly held by Brooks. This ambiguity raises the tension that the reader feels, never definitively receiving “the” message, instead chewing on much food for thought. Such an approach was not only prudent for a young poet, but I might argue it actually affords more a revolutionary political impact. Instead of letting subversion and rebellion fall into the trap of a new orthodoxy, Brooks deftly incites the observant reader and reassures the complacent reader. Making too explicitly partisan pronouncements cuts off interpretation and intellectual opportunities, rather than fostering them.

By contrast, the later Brooks moves to a more politically active tone of voice whereby the narrative voice often addresses the reader directly. In “Speech to the Young / Speech to the Progress-Toward,” Brooks directly addresses the reader (or listener, if the poem is read as intended) and gives specific advice, commands even. Rather than a riddle read from a dusty book in a labyrinthine library, as her earlier poetry sometimes feels, the later poetry largely follows this prescriptive approach, finding itself on a pulpit (“Sermon on the Warpland”) or at the protest. Of course, there are exceptions such as “Boy Breaking Glass,” which echoes the description of the earlier poems. Despite the overall tone being similar, “Boy” begins with a more definite explanation in the first line: “Whose broken window is a cry of art.” Rather than letting the reader wrestle with the complexity of resisting evil with violence, the narrator pushes the reader to accept the use of violence when injustice is too great. Furthermore, a voice pervades the poem; technically, we are not told that the boy speaks it, but no other speaker is provided. Once again, as a reader, our hand is forced rather than being allowed to explore.


Though at the beginning I derided some of the garish rhyming in her earlier poetry, other times she showed herself masterful of poetic forms, such as her sonnets. For example, her sonnet sequence "Gay Chaps at the Bar," about black servicemembers returning from WWII, contains some really amazing work, especially "still do I keep my look, my identity..." and "my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell," of which the latter approaches Shakespeare's level of competency.

Perhaps the problem is that "We Real Cool" is her most frequently anthologized poem, but it's nowhere near her best. The rhymes are too close together, and there's not enough content for the amount of attention paid to it. Instead, a lesser-known but great poem of hers is called "The Egg Boiler," which, as a sort of ars poetica argues for the legitimacy of poetry:

The Egg Boiler

Being you, you cut your poetry from wood.
The boiling of an egg is heavy art.
You come upon it as an artist should,
With rich-eyed passion, and with straining heart.
We fools, we cut our poems out of air.
Night color, wind soprano, and such stuff.
And sometimes weightlessness is much to bear.
You mock it, though, you name it Not Enough.
The egg, spooned gently to the avid pan,
And left the strick three minute, or the four,
Is your Enough and art for any man.
We fools give courteous ear——then cut some more,
Shaping a gorgeous Nothingness from cloud.
You watch us, eat your egg, and laugh aloud.


Another great late poem of hers is "Boy Breaking Glass," which shows a radical shift in her approach to poetics and politics; she captures in this poem the frustration of an unheard voice, and I felt it quite relatable, especially the second stanza, which sounds like a description of heavy metal:

Boy Breaking Glass

Whose broken window is a cry of art
(success, that winks aware
as elegance, as a treasonable faith)
is raw: is sonic: is old-eyed première.
Our beautiful flaw and terrible ornament.
Our barbarous and metal little man.

“I shall create! If not a note, a hole.
If not an overture, a desecration.”

Full of pepper and light
and Salt and night and cargoes.

“Don’t go down the plank
if you see there’s no extension.
Each to his grief, each to
his loneliness and fidgety revenge.
Nobody knew where I was and now I am no longer there.”

The only sanity is a cup of tea.
The music is in minors.

Each one other
is having different weather.

“It was you, it was you who threw away my name!
And this is everything I have for me.”

Who has not Congress, lobster, love, luau,
the Regency Room, the Statue of Liberty,
runs. A sloppy amalgamation.
A mistake.
A cliff.
A hymn, a snare, and an exceeding sun.


It's both hard to rate and to summarize a book of collected poetry, but I think it's fair to say that the work varies in quality, especially depending on what you're looking to get from it. Perhaps the best thing to get from her work is hope, as displayed in the poem that Kanye quoted in "Praise God:"

Speech to the Young: Speech to the Progress-Toward (Among them Nora and Henry III)

Say to them,
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers,
"Even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night."
You will be right.
For that is the hard home-run.

Live not for battles won.
Live not for the-end-of-the-song.
Live in the along.

[grace-may constance · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read for Jesse Nathan’s UCB Brooks English 90

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I met Ms. Brooks on April 14, 1996. She autographed her book "Blacks".

[E.B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gwendolyn Brooks is fucking incredible.

[S. Reid · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVED IT! BOOKSHELF- WORTHY!
If you don't have a copy of this book PLEASE OBTAIN YOUR COPY NOW!

[Black Bibliophile · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really really enjoyed the surprise that was maud martha in the middle! (No spoilers)

[Glen Engel-Cox · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of poetry by Brooks, probably the most honored African- American poet. It also includes "Maud Martha," Brooks' single novel to date. I liked the novel, but felt it was a little too much for me. I like poetry, but I think I like it in small doses, where I can relax and read and reread it without concentrating on how much time it is taking me to do so. Her fiction is like poetry, in the sense that it had as much to do with the vision of things as it did with the characterization or the plot. This is my failing as a reader: I've never cared that much for description, and the longer it continues, the more likely I am to tune out.

But the short poems here, especially from her earlier period, I like a lot. The subjects are strong and powerful, the economy and purpose of the prose admirable. One of my favorites was a poem called "Queen of the Blues," which contrasted the stage persona of a Billie Holiday-like singer with the treatment she receives as an African-American woman. Queen or no queen, she still has the blues. Or "The Murder," about a young boy who sits his toddler brother on fire then doesn't understand when the little brother isn't around afterwards. I did not care as much for her later poems, which were much more experimental in form and harder to follow in content.

A correspondent also complained about the later poems, bothered by their lack of rhyme and lack of clear purpose. While it is true that the latter selections don't rhyme, it's not true that not all of it doesn't. A LiveJournal user posted their essay on "Queen of the Blues," along with the entire poem. I think it shows that Brooks has something to say and does so fairly clearly, although any poetry worth anything contains subtext and imagery that deepens with increased familiarity.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

An uneven collection. When she is good, she is very very good, but it is an unfortunate decision (by someone) to throw so much of Brooks' work into a single book willy-nilly. Again, I am frustrated by the ubiquitous practice of publishing poems without their dates and in no particular sequence! When they are tumbled into a single collection, even the publication date is lost as a crude indicator. Books are dated, paintings are dated, why not individual poems? I would love to have a sense of continuity and evolution, but this (and others) are like artifacts removed from their archaeological context. Another comment: I wish Brooks was not SO dedicated to the rigidity of rhyme, which I feel as a stifling effect on her work.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love her poem "Song in the Front Yard" so I picked up this book. It is a good thick collection of some of her best poetry and Ms. Brooks excellent novel Maud Martha. I had read selections from Maud Martha in classes over the year, but never the whole novel. Maud Martha is honest and aware. She makes hard choices and sticks to them through the consequences. She is a realist and a bit self-effacing. There are babies born and talk of war and daily disappointments of lost jobs and family squabbles. And through it all is an underpinning of hopeful expectation that the future will be better.

[Claire S]

First section of my daughter's English class is all about Gwendolyn. Can't wait to read her finally (separately from my daughter of course, I just am re-doing my high school learning experience now, with her much-better curriculum. We sometimes chat for a second or two about this or that, but basically I read her assigned works for thoroughly selfish reasons.

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

A through investigation to Gwendolyn Brooks who I had read only slightly before. Clearly she honed her skills as she continued and I enjoyed the later poems. But the wonderful moment of this book, for me, was reading Maud Martha. She says it is fiction but I felt like I was living in the character's skins. It is also poetry that is a pleasure to read.

[Sean]

thanks greggy! quite excellent so far (still just poetry hopping, i'll keep you posted on the novel-reading such as it may be...)

[Jen H · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a gift, and I ended up enjoying a lot of Brooks' lesser known poems. But my favorites remain -- Sadie and Maud; The Bean Eaters; and We Real Cool.

[Tori · Rating 4 out of 5]

A phenomenol poet who captured African American life with beauty and dignity. A must for poetry lovers.

[Jimbo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had the pleasure of hearing Ms. Brooks read. Poetry is meant to be heard, especially when the voice is as magnificent as hers was...A voice for the ages...Like a female James Earl Jones...

[Steph Lovelady · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read large swaths of this volume in grad school after having read "In the Mecca" in college but I'd never read it all the way through until now in my (very late) 40s. It includes much of Brooks's poetry and her one novella, Maud Martha.

It was interesting to put Brooks's more well-known works into context by reading more extensively. But, after all these years, it's still "In the Mecca" that stands out for me. It's a long, ambling, narrative poem that describes a mother's journal through a once grand but now decrepit low-income apartment building in search of her missing daughter. Along the way she encounters many neighbors, and there are many memorable character sketches.

The poem's stylistic base is eclectic, drawing on many literary sources, in addition to a straight narrative social protest form. The style is broken, varying in tone, varying in perspective, striving for an epic mood in its appraisal of the situation of so many people. Brooks uses educated allusions, a popular ballad, common street language for the characters and and a more elevated language for the narrator. But overlaying it all is a sense of anger and irreverence common to Black literature of the 60s and early 70s. The poem's irreverent treatment of religion, both Christianity (directly) and Islam (indirectly) is particularly notable.

Less successful for me, was Annie Allen. I found all the allusions got in the way of the story the poems tell about the main character. I know she was trying to show that a story about a poor, black woman can be told in as elevated a manner as the stories of ancient Greek or Roman heroes and I can imagine this working but for some reason, for me it just didn't.

[Sharline Parker]

There are some great poems in this collection. Some of my favorites are "The Mother" "Sadie and Maud" "The girl on the front porch" and a few others. I def recommend if you are into thought-provoking transformation through poetry. Have fun reading!