SELECTED POEMS

by Brooks, Gwendolyn

• ISBN13: 9780060931742
• ISBN10: 0060931744
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-03-12
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

The classic volume by the distinguished modern poet and winner of the 1950 Pulitzer Prize that represents her technical mastery, her compassionate and illuminating response to a world that is both special and universal, and her warm humanity.

Table of Contents

A Street in Bronzeville	p. 3
kitchenette building	p. 3
the mother	p. 4
southeast corner	p. 5
hunchback girl: she thinks of heaven	p. 5
a song in the front yard	p. 6
the ballad of chocolate Mabbie	p. 7
the preacher: ruminates behind the sermon	p. 8
Sadie and Maud	p. 8
the independent man	p. 9
of De Witt Williams on his way to Lincoln Cemetery	p. 10
the vacant lot	p. 11
The Sundays of Satin-Legs Smith	p. 12
Negro Hero	p. 19
gay chaps at the bar	p. 22
still do I keep my look, my identity ...	p. 23
my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell	p. 23
looking	p. 24
piano after war	p. 24
mentors	p. 25
the white troops had their orders but the Negroes looked like men	p. 25
firstly inclined to take what it is told	p. 26
"God works in a mysterious way"	p. 27
love note I: surely	p. 27
love note II: flags	p. 28
the progress	p. 28
Notes from the Childhood and the Girlhood	p. 33
Clogged and soft and sloppy eyes	p. 33
Chicken, she chided early, should not wait	p. 33
After the baths and bowel-work, he was dead	p. 34
Late Annie in her bower lay	p. 34
The duck fats rot in the roasting pan	p. 35
"Do not be afraid of no"	p. 36
But can see better there, and laughing there	p. 37
Think of sweet and chocolate	p. 38
You need the untranslatable ice to watch	p. 50
The Certainty we two shall meet by God	p. 51
Oh mother, mother, where is happiness	p. 51
The Womanhood	p. 52
People who have no children can be hard	p. 52
What shall I give my children? who are poor	p. 53
And shall I prime my children, pray, to pray?	p. 53
First fight. Then fiddle. Ply the slipping string	p. 54
When my dears die, the festival-colored brightness	p. 54
Life for my child is simple, and is good	p. 55
Sweet Sally took a cardboard box	p. 56
A light and diplomatic bird	p. 57
Carried her unprotesting out the door	p. 58
They get to Benvenuti's. There are booths	p. 59
The dry brown coughing beneath their feet	p. 61
And if sun comes	p. 62
One wants a Teller in a time like this	p. 63
People protest in sprawling lightless ways	p. 64
Men of careful turns, haters of forks in the road	p. 65
In Honor of David Anderson Brooks, My Father	p. 69
My Little 'Bout-town Gal	p. 70
Strong Men, Riding Horses	p. 71
The Bean Eaters	p. 72
We Real Cool	p. 73
Old Mary	p. 74
A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi, Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon	p. 75
The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till	p. 81
Mrs. Small	p. 82
Jessie Mitchell's Mother	p. 85
The Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock	p. 87
The Lovers of the Poor	p. 90
A Sunset of the City	p. 94
A Man of the Middle Class	p. 96
The Crazy Woman	p. 99
Bronzeville Man with a Belt in the Back	p. 100
A Lovely Love	p. 101
A Penitent Considers Another Coming of Mary	p. 102
Bronzeville Woman in a Red Hat	p. 103
In Emanuel's Nightmare: Another Coming of Christ	p. 107
The Ballad of Rudolph Reed	p. 110
Riders to the Blood-red Wrath	p. 115
The Empty Woman	p. 119
To Be in Love	p. 120
Of Robert Frost	p. 122
Langston Hughes	p. 123
A Catch of Shy Fish	p. 124
garbageman: the man with the orderly mind	p. 124
sick man looks at flowers	p. 124
old people working (garden, car)	p. 125
weaponed woman	p. 125
old tennis player	p. 125
a surrealist and Omega	p. 126
Spaulding and Francois	p. 126
Big Bessie throws ber son into the street	p. 127
About Gwendolyn Brooks	p. 129
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.