The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks by Gwendolyn Brooks, Elizabeth Alexander (Editor)

From the Publisher

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.

Author Biography: Gwendolyn Brooks was born in 1917. Her books include A Street in Bronzeville, Annie Allen, The Bean Eaters, Maud Martha, and In the Mecca.

New York Times

When Miss Brooks...writes out of her heart, out of her rich and living background, out of her very real talent, then she induces almost unbearable excitement.

Christian Science Monitor

From her poet's craft bursts a whole gallery of wholly alive persons...Many a novelist cannot do so well in ten times the space.

What People Are Saying

Paul Engle
"Miss Brooks has a very fine talent...a faculty which is becoming rare in contemporary poetry: an interest not merely in her own responses, but in other people as well."

Harvey Curtis Webster
"She is a very good poet, the only superlative I dare use in our time of misusage; compared...to the best of modern poets, she ranks high."

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Read an Excerpt

Table of Contents

Read an Excerpt

A Street in Bronzeville

kitchenette building

We are things of dry hours and the involuntary plan,
Grayed in, and gray. "Dream" makes a giddy sound, not strong
Like "rent," "feeding a wife," "satisfying a man."

But could a dream send up through onion fumes
Its white and violet, fight with fried potatoes
And yesterday's garbage ripening in the hall,
Flutter, or sing an aria down these rooms

Even if we were willing to let it in,
Had time to warm it, keep it very clean,
Anticipate a message, let it begin?

We wonder. But not well! not for a minute!
Since Number Five is out of the bathroom now,
We think of lukewarm water, hope to get in it.