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Gwendolyn BrooksA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
“The Bean Eaters” by Gwendolyn Brooks (1960)
In another poem from The Bean Eaters, Brooks takes a subtle approach to representing working-class Black life. The subjects in this poem are an old couple who take comfort in each other as they eke out an existence in a poor apartment in Chicago. The poem connects thematically to “The Ballad of Rudolph Reed” in its examination of the reality of poverty and poor housing for Black people in Chicago during the 1950s. In the face of poverty and racism, family becomes an important source of resilience.
“The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till” by Gwendolyn Brooks (1960)
Also included in the same volume of poetry as “The Ballad of Rudolph Reed,” this poem contrasts sharply with “The Ballad of Rudolph Reed” in form and diction. Instead of relying on archaic language and regular rhyme and meter to represent racial violence, Brooks deconstructs the ballad by using stark, visual images and a realistic portrayal of a mother exhausted and horrified by the lynching of her son.
“We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks (1960)
Also included in The Bean Eaters, “We Real Cool” is a departure from many of Brooks’s poems because it has a strong rhythm that recalls the street games and sounds of young Black people of the inner city.
By Gwendolyn Brooks
A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon
Gwendolyn Brooks
A Sunset of the City
Gwendolyn Brooks
Boy Breaking Glass
Gwendolyn Brooks
Cynthia in the Snow
Gwendolyn Brooks
Maud Martha
Gwendolyn Brooks
my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell
Gwendolyn Brooks
Speech to the Young: Speech to the Progress-Toward (Among them Nora and Henry III)
Gwendolyn Brooks
The birth in a narrow room
Gwendolyn Brooks
The Blackstone Rangers
Gwendolyn Brooks
The Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock
Gwendolyn Brooks
The Crazy Woman
Gwendolyn Brooks
The Lovers of the Poor
Gwendolyn Brooks
The Mother
Gwendolyn Brooks
the rites for Cousin Vit
Gwendolyn Brooks
To Be in Love
Gwendolyn Brooks
To The Diaspora
Gwendolyn Brooks
Ulysses
Gwendolyn Brooks
We Real Cool
Gwendolyn Brooks