Sadie and Maud

By Gwendolyn Brooks 1917–2000 Gwendolyn Brooks

Maud went to college.

Sadie stayed at home.

Sadie scraped life

With a fine-tooth comb.

She didn’t leave a tangle in.

Her comb found every strand.

Sadie was one of the livingest chits

In all the land.

Sadie bore two babies

Under her maiden name.

Maud and Ma and Papa

Nearly died of shame.

When Sadie said her last so-long

Her girls struck out from home.

(Sadie had left as heritage

Her fine-tooth comb.)

Maud, who went to college,

Is a thin brown mouse.

She is living all alone

In this old house.

Gwendolyn Brooks, “Sadie and Maud” from Selected Poems. Reprinted by consent of Brooks Permissions.

Source: Selected Poems (1963)

Biography

Gwendolyn Brooks was a highly regarded, much-honored poet, with the distinction of being the first black author to win the Pulitzer Prize. She also was poetry consultant to the Library of Congress—the first black woman to hold that position—and poet laureate of the State of Illinois. Many of Brooks's works display a political consciousness, especially those from the 1960s and later, with several of her poems reflecting the civil . . .

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