Learn about Gwendolyn Brooks
The Biography of Gwendolyn Brooks Gwendolyn Brooks was a very famous African American woman poet who was born on 7th of July, 1917 and died on 3rd of December, 2000. She was born in Topeka, Kansas but she moved to Chicago, Illinois, where she lived until 1996 when she moved back to
Topeka. As she grew up, she encountered racial prejudice in the society and as a result she wrote some poems about the African Americans such as Blacks and To the Diaspora. Brooks’ enthusiasm for literature was strongly encouraged by her parents. Due her enthusiasm, she was able to achieve many things. For example, at the age of thirteen, she published her first poem in a magazine and when Brooks was 17, she submitted her work to an African American Newspaper. Gwendolyn Brooks also received many awards for many of her collections: In 1943, she received an award for poetry from the Midwestern Writers’ Conference, and in 1945, she published her book called A Street of Bronzeville and she was made one of the Ten Young Women of the Year. Also, when she published her other collection called Annie Allen in 1949, Brooks won her Poetry Magazine’s Eunice Tietjens Prize, and she received a Pulitzer Prize in 1950, the first won by African American. Finally in 1968, she was made ‘Poet Laureate of Illinois’. Gwendolyn Brooks wrote many other things other than poems such as fictions, autobiography, and prose. She wasn’t only a poet but was also a college teacher; she taught creative writing.
To The Diaspora- (My favorite poem of Gwendolyn Brooks)you did not know you were AfrikaWhen you set out for Afrika
you did not know you were going.
Because
you did not know you were Afrika.
You did not know the Black continent
that had to be reached
was you.(Gwendolyn Brooks is using a metaphor between ‘you’ and ‘Afrika/black continent’ the first stanza contains one line; and the second stanza contains 7 lines. She also used repetition in the beginning of the lines in the second stanza, ‘you did not know…’)I could not have told you then that some sun
would come,
somewhere over the road,
would come evoking the diamonds
of you, the Black continent–
somewhere over the road.
You would not have believed my mouth.(This Stanza contains 7 lines, no metaphor, simile, or personification.)When I told you, meeting you somewhere close
to the heat and youth of the road,
liking my loyalty, liking belief,
you smiled and you thanked me but very little believed me.(Stanza with 4 lines, no metaphor, simile, or personification)Here is some sun. Some.
Now off into the places rough to reach.
Though dry, though drowsy, all unwillingly a-wobble,
into the dissonant and dangerous crescendo.
Your work, that was done, to be done to be done to be done.(Repetition at the end, ‘to be done to be done…’; 5 lines in stanza. Simile in ‘places rough to reach’ into ‘the dissonant and dangerous crescendo’.What I liked/disliked And Questions I have What I really liked about this poem is that it Gwendolyn Brooks used an effective metaphor from ‘you’ to ‘Afrika’ and ‘the Black Continent’. Also, she used symbolisms such as: ‘road’ means a very long distance, and ‘Sun’ means ‘Hope’. (I think) This poem deals with the blacks; that they had to work hard and although it doesn’t directly mentions that they were treated differently than the others, I could tell just by reading the and d in the poem that the African Americans were discriminated. Also, I liked the end of this poem, ‘…done, to be done, to be done to be done.’
What I didn’t really like about this poem is that there aren’t enough figurative languages in this poem. Also, I didn’t like the fact that many of the phrases are hard to understand such as ‘Here is some sun. Some.’ Although I have mentioned that I liked the metaphors used in this poem and the symbolisms, I think that the symbolisms could have been more clear by using the metaphors, simile, and personification.
1. What does the road, sun, and diamonds represent? (clear and specifically)
2. What does this poem want to tell people?3. What is this poem really about?4. What does the last stanza mean?
