ED HERMAN:
Welcome to the Chicago Poetry Tour podcast produced by the Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. This is tour number 21, The Hall Library. This tour is set in the Hall Library in Chicago's South Side and features one of the most celebrated Chicago poets, Gwendolyn Brooks. The Chicago Poetry Tour is a multi-media tour of poetry written in and about Chicago. It features a wide range of poets set in a variety of neighborhoods and landmarks. The tour explores 22 sites around the city and showcases the dynamic and legendary history of poetry in Chicago through archival and contemporary recordings of poets and scholars, local musicians and historic photos. You can take the whole tour for free at poetryfoundation.org.

GWENDOLYN BROOKS:
I myself have only tried to record life and interpret it as I have seen it.

RICHARD STEELE:
Gwendolyn Brooks is recognized as one of the greatest American poets of the 20th century. And the life that she wrote about was grounded here on Chicago's South Side.

GWENDOLYN BROOKS:
When I was 15, I remember going to our neighborhood library and finding a book called Carolyn Dusk. Carolyn Dusk. And it contained the work of the Carters, Joseph Carter Junior and senior and Langston Hughes, Sterling Brown, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay. And it was a delight to me to find that it was not only Paul Laurence Dunbar who was writing poetry and being published, but all these others. So I thought there was some hope for myself because by that time I knew that what I wanted to do was to write poetry.

RICHARD STEELE:
Like the library, young Gwendolyn's house was also full of books, thanks to her parents, with everything from the Harvard classics to contemporary Black writers. But at school, her literary ambitions weren't exactly encouraged.

GWENDOLYN BROOKS:
No, indeed. And there certainly wasn't any emphasis on writing. When I was going to school, there was no emphasis on creativity. In fact, when I had a little, in elementary school, when I had a little flair in my compositions, the teacher would say, Where did you get that? You must have stolen that. You couldn't have thought of that by yourself.

RICHARD STEELE:
In the early 1930s, at the age of 16, Brooks attended a reading by one of her heroes, Langston Hughes.

GWENDOLYN BROOKS:
He came to recite in my family's church.

LANGSTON HUGHES:
With his ebony hands on each ivory key, he made that poor piano moan with melody. O blues! Swaying to and fro.

GWENDOLYN BROOKS:
And my mother insisted that I take some poems with us. And she wanted me to show them to him, which I did. And he said, “You are very talented. Keep writing. Someday you'll have a book published.”

RICHARD STEELE:
Hughes also urged her to read Modernist poets, especially Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, and to write as much as possible. While still in school, Brooks contributed nearly 100 poems to The Chicago Defender, the leading voice among African-American newspapers at the time. In the early 1940s, her work began to appear in national magazines, including poetry. Her first book, A Street in Bronzeville, received instant critical acclaim. In it, Brooks demonstrates her mastery of the techniques of modernism, using precise, unsentimental language and telling detail to portray Black urban life. In one poem, “kitchenette building,” hopes and dreams are constrained by practical concerns.

GWENDOLYN BROOKS:
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.

RICHARD STEELE:
Gwendolyn Brooks reading “kitchenette building.”

NORA BROOKS BLAKELY:
Where was Mama in the house, there was paper.

RICHARD STEELE:
Gwendolyn Brooks' daughter Nora Brooks Blakely, is the artistic director of Chocolate Chips Theatre Company in Chicago.

NORA BROOKS BLAKELY:
And she was writing or she was typing on her manual typewriter. She tried an electric typewriter briefly once. That just did not work out. And she never used a computer. She always used notebooks and manual typewriters. To this day, I can see my mother at the dining room table, writing with a bookcase right behind her with the cookie jar and the turtle jar that had papers in it and so forth.

RICHARD STEELE:
Brooks's next book traces the arc of a young Black girl becoming a woman. Annie Allen won a Pulitzer Prize for Brooks. She was the first Black author to win one. This poem, “the rites for Cousin Vit” is one of the many she wrote that celebrate the flamboyant characters she knew.

GWENDOLYN BROOKS:
Vit was really named Verlie. And she was so full of life, so full of grit and spice and daring that it was hard to imagine her really leaving. So this is my impression as I attended her funeral when her casket was being carried out. 

Carried her unprotesting out the door.
Kicked back the casket-stand. But it can't hold her,
That stuff and satin aiming to enfold her,
The lid's contrition nor the bolts before.
Oh oh. Too much. Too much. Even now, surmise,
She rises in the sunshine. There she goes,
Back to the bars she knew and the repose
In love-rooms and the things in people's eyes.
Too vital and too squeaking. Must emerge.
Even now she does the snake-hips with a hiss,
Slops the bad wine across her shantung, talks
Of pregnancy, guitars and bridgework, walks
In parks or alleys, comes haply on the verge
Of happiness, haply hysterics. Is.

RICHARD STEELE:
Gwendolyn Brooks reading “the rites for Cousin Vit.” Her third book of poetry was called The Bean Eaters.

GWENDOLYN BROOKS:
I use that title because I've always loved Van Gogh's famous painting, “The Potato Eaters,” which you've probably seen. And I love that title, that name, too. And I said to myself, Gee, I wish that I had thought of the potato eaters before he did. But that I said to myself, “The Bean Eaters” is probably more appropriate for this collection of Blacks who are not very rich. And they're quite poor, most of them in the book. And it's appropriate because a pound of beans in such a family will go further than a pound of potatoes. You just add more water.

RICHARD STEELE:
Here's Gwendolyn Brooks reading the title poem from “The Bean Eaters.”

GWENDOLYN BROOKS:
They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair.
Dinner is a casual affair.
Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood,
Tin flatware.

Two who are Mostly Good.
Two who have lived their day,
But keep on putting on their clothes
And putting things away.

And remembering ...
Remembering, with twinklings and twinges,
As they lean over the beans in their rented back room that is full of beads and receipts and dolls and cloths, tobacco crumbs, vases and fringes.

I wish I could read that last line as fast as it ought to be read so that you get an immediate impression of a room with a lot of stuff in it.

RICHARD STEELE:
Gwendolyn Brooks reading “The Bean Eaters.”

GWENDOLYN BROOKS:
In writing your poem, tell the truth as you know it. Tell your truth. Don't try to sugar it up. Don't force your poem to be nice or proper or normal or happy if it does not want to be. Remember that poetry is life distilled.

RICHARD STEELE:
Midway through her career, issues surrounding race in America became more urgent. In Gwendolyn Brooks' writing in 1963, she began a series of university teaching jobs which put her in touch with a new generation of writers. In 1967, she attended the second Black Writers Conference at Fisk University.

GWENDOLYN BROOKS:
The young poets that I met then had as a motto, Black poetry is poetry written by Blacks about Blacks to Blacks.

RICHARD STEELE:
Throughout her work, Brooks had been looking hard at race and violence. A Street in Bronzeville includes a poem about a lynching. And The Bean Eaters has two poems on the murder of Emmett Till. But the events of the late 1960s brought a new intensity to her views.

GWENDOLYN BROOKS:
When Martin Luther King was assassinated, riots broke out in many places in the country. In Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, other places. And a riot is certainly a temptation to any poet's pen. And I got my particular inspiration for my particular riot poem when I saw a half-page photograph of young rioters coming down our Madison Street in Chicago. And it occurred to me to wonder how a young white liberal or an old white liberal would respond to such a confrontation, such an announcement. And I named my liberal, John Cabot. I have, under my title, something that was frequently said by Martin Luther King, “A riot is the language of the unheard.”

RICHARD STEELE:
Here's Gwendolyn Brooks reading “Riot.”

GWENDOLYN BROOKS:
A riot is the language of the unheard.

John Cabot, out of Wilma, once a Wycliffe,
all whitebluerose below his golden hair,
wrapped richly in right linen and right wool,
almost forgot his Jaguar and Lake Bluff;
almost forgot Grandtully (which is The
Best Thing That Ever Happened To Scotch); almost
forgot the sculpture at the Richard Gray
and Distelheim; the kidney pie at Maxim’s,
the Grenadine de Boeuf at Maison Henri.

Because the Negroes were coming down the street.

Because the Poor were sweaty and unpretty
(not like Two Dainty Negroes in Winnetka)
and they were coming toward him in rough ranks.
In seas. In windsweep. They were black and loud.
And not detainable. And not discreet.

Gross. Gross. “Que tu es grossier!” John Cabot
itched instantly beneath the nourished white
that told his story of glory to the World.
“Don’t let It touch me! the blackness! Lord!” he whispered
to any handy angel in the sky.
But, in a thrilling announcement, on It drove
and breathed on him: and touched him. In that breath
the fume of pig foot, chitterling and cheap chili,
malign, mocked John. And, in terrific touch, old
averted doubt jerked forward decently,
cried, “Cabot! John! You are a desperate man,
and the desperate die expensively today.”

John Cabot went down in the smoke and fire
and broken glass and blood, and he cried “Lord!
Forgive these nigguhs that know not what they do.”

RICHARD STEELE:
Gwendolyn Brooks reading “Riot.” By 1968, Brooks was an established public figure. She was appointed poet laureate of Illinois and frequently gave readings and workshops. While she was embraced by the white literary establishment, Brooks was increasingly drawn to the Black Arts Movement and its emphasis on political action and social engagement.

GWENDOLYN BROOKS:
Not a great deal happened to the poetry. You might be surprised to have me say that. But what happened to me was spiritual and social. These people knew a lot about what was happening in the society. I was an optimist and I still am by way of being an optimist. But I was a complete optimist then. And I thought that if Blacks were nice enough and proper enough and all that stuff, everything would turn out OK. Well, these young people that I met in those times, '67, '68 would have none of that kind of attitude. They felt that their address should be to themselves. They felt that Blacks had so much to say to each other. And that's what they were about the business of doing.

HAKI MADHUBUTI:
A Negro English instructor called to a fire Negro poet, why critics say she's a credit to the Negro race.

RICHARD STEELE:
One of the younger poets Gwendolyn Brooks met was Haki Madhubuti, founder of Third World Press.

HAKI MADHUBUTI:
into the sixties
a word was born . . . . . . . . BLACK
& with black came poets
& from the poet’s ball points came:
black doubleblack purpleblack blueblack beenblack was
black daybeforeyesterday

RICHARD STEELE:
Here's an excerpt from one of several poems Madhubuti wrote in dedication to Gwendolyn Brooks.

HAKI MADHUBUTI:
i justdiscoveredblack negro
black unsubstanceblack.

and everywhere the
lady “negro poet”
appeared the poets were there.
they listened & questioned
& went home feeling uncomfortable/unsound & so-untogether
they read/re-read/wrote & rewrote
& came back the next time to tell the
lady “negro poet”
how beautiful she was/is & how she helped them
& she came back with:
how necessary they were and how they’ve helped her.
the poets walked & as space filled the vacuum between
them & the
lady “negro poet”
u could hear one of the blackpoets say:
“bro, they been calling that sister by the wrong name.”

GWENDOLYN BROOKS:
We did such exciting things. And we went out in the park and recited our poetry and we went to city jail. And the most exciting thing we did was to just walk into a tavern, some seven or eight of us, and someone like Haki Madhubuti, once known as Don L. Lee, would say, "Look, folks, we're going to lay some poetry on you."

HAKI MADHUBUTI:
And it was interesting how we were received in these places. I mean, some people said, They must be crazy. You know, their mind.

GWENDOLYN BROOKS:
And they would turn from their drinks temporarily and listen to poetry, which they had not come into the tavern to hear, of course.

HAKI MADHUBUTI:
You must understand that during this period, all of us were community minded and we were activist poets, political poets, cultural poets. And we felt that the words that we were writing needed to be shared and tested.

RICHARD STEELE:
Which brings us to Gwendolyn Brooks' most famous poem written earlier and published in The Bean Eaters.

GWENDOLYN BROOKS:
A poem like my own short “We Real Cool,” would be the kind of thing that I could read in such an atmosphere. 

We Real Cool
The pool players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel. 

We real cool. We
Left school. We 

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We 

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We 

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

RICHARD STEELE:
Gwendolyn Brooks reading “We Real Cool.” Despite its popularity, this poem has actually been banned.

GWENDOLYN BROOKS:
Because of the word jazz, which some people have considered a sexual reference. That was not my intention, though I have no objection if it helps anybody. But I was thinking of music. My supreme operating word for myself and others is kindness. I believe that if whites are interested in kindness, they will automatically do much of what is right toward Blacks and they can help matters along by not being silent in their own midst when wrongs are being perpetrated or uttered.

RICHARD STEELE:
But kindness wasn't a panacea for Brooks. She also believed in taking action, and she believed fervently in the importance of Black people discovering and celebrating their identity. She did not like the term African American. She called it excluding. She preferred to think of all Blacks as family. In 1980, Brooks published a book called Primer for Blacks about the need for Black self-awareness. The book was mostly prose, but there were also some poems. Here's the poem that gave the book its title.

GWENDOLYN BROOKS:
Blackness
is a title,
is a preoccupation,
is a commitment Blacks
are to comprehend—
and in which you are
to perceive your Glory.

The conscious shout
of all that is white is
“It’s Great to be white.”
The conscious shout
of the slack in Black is
"It's Great to be white."
Thus all that is white
has white strength and yours.

The word Black
has geographic power,
pulls everybody in:
Blacks here—
Blacks there—
Blacks wherever they may be.
And remember, you Blacks, what they told you—
remember your Education:
“one Drop—one Drop
maketh a brand new Black.”
Oh mighty Drop.
______And because they have given us kindly
so many more of our people

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.

The huge, the pungent object of our prime out-ride
is to Comprehend,
to salute and to Love the fact that we are Black,
which is our “ultimate Reality,”
which is the lone ground
from which our meaningful metamorphosis,
from which our prosperous staccato,
group or individual, can rise.

Self-shriveled Blacks.
Begin with gaunt and marvelous concession:
YOU are our costume and our fundamental bone.

All of you—
you COLORED ones,
you NEGRO ones,
those of you who proudly cry
“I’m half INDian”—
those of you who proudly screech
“I’VE got the blood of George WASHington in MY veins”
ALL of you—
you proper Blacks,
you half-Blacks,
you wish-I-weren’t Blacks,
Niggeroes and Niggerenes.

You.

RICHARD STEELE:
Gwendolyn Brooks reading “Primer for Blacks.”

ED HERMAN:
This has been the Chicago Poetry Tour podcast. This was tour number 21, The Hall Library. The narrator was Richard Steele. The opening music is by the Deep Blue Organ Trio, used with permission of Delmark Records. The full tour with 22 sites is available for free. You can take the multimedia tour online or download audio files at poetryfoundation.org. I'm Ed Herman. Thanks for listening.