Gwendolyn Brooks was 7 years old when she started writing poems. At 13, she her first piece in a children’s magazine. The poem was called “Eventide,” and it read:
”When the sun sinks behind the mountains,
And the sky is besprinkled with color,
And the neighboring brook is peaceful still,
With a gentle, silent ripple now and then;
When flowers send forth sweet odors,
And the grass is uncommonly green,
When the air is
sweet,
And children flock to their mothers’ sides,
Then worry flees and comfort
,
For all know it welcoming evening.”
Brooks went on to write many more poems. As a teen, she often got her work into a newspaper. And later, she wrote more than 20 books.
Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas, in 1917. She moved to Chicago, Illinois, as a baby. In 1968, Brooks became the of Illinois. She held that title for 32 years. In the 1980s, she also served as a poetry expert for the U.S. Library of Congress. That job is now called the poet laureate of the United States.
Brooks won many awards. One was a Pulitzer Prize in 1950. Brooks was the first African American to get that top writing award.
Brooks died in 2000. But we don’t have to measure her life in years or prizes. We can round up her own words. Her writings show how Brooks saw the world. She often wrote about everyday life.
The Bean Eaters is Brooks’s most famous book. In a poem of the same name, the writer describes an old couple sharing a meal. They don’t have much money, and beans are a cheap food. The poem describes the scene:
“They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair.
Dinner is a casual affair.
Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood,
Tin flatware.”
Brooks wrote about race and Black experiences. In “Primer for Blacks,” she says:
“Blackness
stretches over the land.
Blackness —
the Black of it,
the rust-red of it,
the milk and cream of it,
the tan and yellow-tan of it,
the deep-brown middle-brown high-brown of it,
the ‘olive’ and ochre of it —
Blackness
marches on.”
In “A Song in the Front Yard,” Brooks captures the feeling of wanting more. It begins:
“I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life.
I want a peek at the back
Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed grows.
A girl gets sick of a rose.”
Brooks also shared advice for young people. The poem is called “Speech to the Young.” It’s about living in the moment and never giving up. The piece says:
“Say to them,
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers,
‘Even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night.’
You will be right.
For that is the hard home-run.
Live not for battles won.
Live not for the-end-of-the-song.
Live in the along.”
Updated January 31, 2023, 5:02 P.M. (ET)
By Ashley Morgan
