Gwendolyn Brooks (1917 – 2000)
American poet.
That time
we all heard it,
cool and clear,
cutting across the hot grit of the day.
The major Voice.
The adult Voice
forgoing Rolling River,
forgoing tearful tale of bale and barge
and other symptoms of an old despond.
Warning, in music-words
devout and large,
that we are each other's
harvest:
we are each other's
business:
we are each other's
magnitude and bond.
Truth-tellers are not always palatable. There is a preference for candy bars.
Exhaust the little moment.
Soon it dies.
And be it gash or gold it will not come
Again in this identical guise.
I am interested in telling my particular truth as I have seen it.
Already I am no longer looked at with lechery or love.
My daughters and sons have put me away with marbles and dolls,
Are gone from the house.
My husband and lovers are pleasant or somewhat polite
And night is night.
He is not there but
You know you are tasting together
The winter, or a light spring weather.
His hand to take your hand is
overmuch.
Too much too bear.
Rudolph Reed was oaken.
His wife was oaken too.
And his two good girls and his good little man
Oakened as they grew.
As you get older, you find that often the wheat, disentangling itself from the chaff, comes out to meet you.
Come: there shall be such islanding from grief,
And small communion with the master shore.
Twang they. And I incline this ear to tin,
Consult a dual dilemma. Whether to dry
In humming pallor or to leap and die.
Our earth is round, and, among other things
That means that you and I can hold completely different
Points of view and both be right.
The difference of our positions will show
Stars in your window I cannot even imagine.
Your sky may burn with light,
While mine, at the same moment,
Spreads beautiful to darkness.
Believe me, I loved you all.
Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you
All.
The WEs in "We Real Cool" are tiny, wispy, weakly argumentative "Kilroy-is-here" announcements. The boys have no accented sense of themselves, yet they are aware of a semi-defined personal importance. Say the "We" softly.
The good man.
He is still enhancer, renouncer.
In the time of detachment,
in the time of the vivid heather and affectionate evil,
in the time of oral
grave grave legalities of hate - all real
walks our prime registered reproach and seal.
Our successful moral.
The good man.
I hold my honey and I store my bread
In little jars and cabinets of my will.
I label clearly, and each latch and lid
I bid, Be firm till I return from hell.
A writer should get as much education as possible, but just going to school is not enough; if it were, all owners of doctorates would be inspired writers.
To be in love
Is to touch with a lighter hand.
In yourself you stretch, you are well.
It is brave to be involved
To be not fearful to be unresolved.
And all the little people
Will stare at me and say,
"That is the Crazy Woman
Who would not sing in May."
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
Art is a refining and evocative translation of the materials of the world.