Gwendolyn Brooks kicks my ass every time

This week's theme over at A Word A Day has been words from the poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks (also here).

As I wrote to Anu, besides the normal entertainment his newsletter gives me, this week he's also reminded me how much I love Ms. Brooks' work.

Discovering to my dismay that we didn't have any of her books in our house (I suspect larceny!), I got down to Elliott Bay as soon as I could and picked up the slim but wonderful classic volume Selected Poems, first published in 1963.

And of course I have a couple of samples for you. The first was originally published in her first volume of poetry, A Street in Bronzeville.

kitchenette building

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.

The second poem is from another book, about soldiers and war, called Gay Chaps at the Bar.

the white troops had their orders but the Negroes looked like men

They had supposed their formula was fixed.
They had obeyed instructions to devise
A type of cold, a type of hooded gaze.
But when the Negroes came they were perplexed.
These Negroes looked like men. Besides, it taxed
Time and the temper to remember those
Congenital iniquities that cause
Disfavor of the darkness. Such as boxed
Their feelings properly, complete to tags --
A box for dark men and a box for Other --
Would often find the contents had been scrambled.
Or even switched. Who really gave two figs?
Neither the earth nor heaven ever trembled.
And there was nothing startling in the weather.

Wow. You could tell, when I was reading the second one on the bus, that I was in love... I had that giddy, grinning look, and I was reading nearly aloud, just under my breath.