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Posts Tagged ‘Gwendolyn Brooks’

Katie Hartsock

Happy Birthday, Gwendolyn Brooks!

Remember that poetry is life distilled.
—Gwendolyn Brooks

June 7, 2009, would have been Gwendolyn Brooks’s 92nd birthday; to join us in celebrating one of America’s greatest poets, check out the Hall Library stop on the Chicago Poetry Tour, which features archival recordings of Brooks reading from and speaking about the span of her work. The program ranges from the intimate neighborhood portraits included in her first collection, A Street in Bronzeville, such as “kitchenette building”  and “the rites for Cousin Vit,” to the political turn her poetry took in the ’60s as she became involved with the black arts movement:

And we did such exciting things. And we went into the park and recited our poetry and we went to city jail. And the most exciting thing we did was just to walk into a tavern, and someone like Haki Madhubuti, once known as Don L. Lee, would say, “Look folks, we’re gonna lay some poetry on you!” . . . And they would turn from their drinks, temporarily, and listen to poetry, which they hadn’t come to the tavern to hear, of course.

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06.16.09 | COMMENTS (8)

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