On Gwendolyn Brooks

by Wright, Stephen Caldwell

• ISBN13: 9780472088393
• ISBN10: 0472088394
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-12-01
• Publisher: Univ of Michigan Pr

Summary

This essential book collects reviews and essays on the art and career of Gwendolyn Brooks, the first Black author to win the Pulitzer Prize. While she is best known for her poetry, Brooks's essays, fiction, and children's collections have also drawn critical acclaim and are discussed in this volume. Stephen Caldwell Wright's collection gathers essays and reviews from a remarkable range of sources: from long out-of-print journals to theNew Yorker. Similarly, it draws from an eclectic group of writers, ranging from Eleanor Holmes Norton to Louis Simpson. The reviews reveal Brooks as a poet who, despite her vast knowledge and classical leanings, remains a voice of and for the people. In 1968, Gwendolyn Brooks succeeded Carl Sandburg as Poet Laureate of Illinois. She has received two Guggenheim Fellowships and has served as Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress. Stephen Caldwell Wright is Professor of English, Seminole Community College.

Table of Contents

Preface
Reviews
A Street in Bronzeville
Chicago Can Take Pride in New, Young Voice in Poetry	p. 3
Review of a Street in Bronzeville	p. 5
Annie Allen
Cellini-Like Lyrics	p. 6
Verse Chronicle	p. 8
Still Remarkable	p. 9
Bronze by Gold	p. 10
Maud Martha
From Poet to Novelist	p. 15
Soft Meditations	p. 16
The Bean Eaters
From "Battle of the Books"	p. 17
Pity the Giants	p. 19
Selected Poems
Taking the Poem by the Horns	p. 23
A Long Reach, Strong Speech	p. 24
In the Mecca
Books That Look Out, Books That Look In	p. 26
In the Mecca	p. 27
The World of Gwendolyn Brooks
Making Beauty from Racial Anxiety	p. 29
The World of Gwendolyn Brooks	p. 35
Children Coming Home
Children Coming Home: A Tribute to Survival	p. 38
Essays
Blacklisting Poets	p. 45
Gwendolyn Brooks: An Appreciation from the White Suburbs	p. 50
For Sadie and Maud	p. 60
The Poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks	p. 66
Gwendolyn Brooks: Beyond the Wordmaker - The Making of an African Poet	p. 81
Gwendolyn Brooks	p. 97
Essences, Unifyings, and Black Militancy: Major Themes in Gwendolyn Brooks's Family Pictures and Beckonings	p. 106
From "The Florescence of Nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s"	p. 116
Maud Martha	p. 124
Dual Vision in Gwendolyn Brooks's Maud Martha	p. 136
"Define . . . the Whirlwind": Gwendolyn Brooks's Epic Sign for a Generation	p. 146
In the Mecca	p. 161
Gwendolyn Brooks: Jean Toomer's November Cotton Flower	p. 182
Making It Really New: Hilda Doolittle, Gwendolyn Brooks, and the Feminist Potential of Modern Poetry	p. 186
The Satisfactions of What's Difficult in Gwendolyn Brooks's Poetry	p. 213
"Gottschalk and the Grande Tarantelle"	p. 224
Recent Essays
The Women of Bronzeville	p. 233
The Poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks: An Afrocentric Exploration	p. 246
Gwendolyn Brooks: An Essential Sanity	p. 254
Selected Bibliography
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