Source of book: I own this.
This is one of my selections for Black History Month.
You can read my thoughts on why black history is important here.
Typically, while I do not “officially” count every book I read during Black History Month, I make an effort to read in three genres: Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Poetry. This book is, obviously, the latter of the categories.
I have talked about my homeschool experience quite a lot, including the problematic curriculum we used. (Mostly A Beka.) In retrospect, there sure was a lot of propaganda in it, particularly the history and science books, although it also wasn’t as horrible as the alternatives at the time such as Bob Jones.
The literature curriculum, though, was a mixed bag. Yes, there was a certain amount of “everything Christian is good and everything not Christian is bad” crap. Yes, it glorified Victorian Era white authors a bit too much, although at least it didn’t denigrate female or minority authors. Really, the biggest flaw was its ignoring the latter half of the 20th Century entirely.
Yet I would say that it did expose me to a wide range of literature, and introduced me to many black authors that I still love today. In particular, I learned a lot of poetry, something I unfortunately see as uncommon these days. (Some of my kids’ high school teachers barely touched on it at all, alas.)
In addition to Paul Laurence Dunbar, Countee Cullen, and Langston Hughes, I distinctly remember reading a poem or two by Gwendolyn Brooks.
The Bean Eaters is probably her most famous work, and definitely contains her most famous poem.
One thing that is striking about this collection is just how widely varied Brooks’ poems are. From very modern, free verse, and experimental forms to traditional ballads and sonnets. She was clearly incredibly talented and versatile, as she wrote wonderfully in all of the styles. I will try to feature some of the contrasts in this post.
While the poems are also thematically varied, there are some ideas that dominate the collection. First is the murder of Emmett Till, an event that even shocked the consciences of many white people. The other is the efforts to integrate schools in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education. Many of the other poems illustrate the variety of African American experience, particularly as found in Brooks’ hometown of Chicago.
I’ll start with the poem I read in high school and never forgot.
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.
The surface way to read this poem as a racist white person (which was kind of the perspective of the curriculum) is as a condemnation of black culture. But that is to largely miss the point.
Brooks is observing a certain kind of masculinity here, one that knows no race or class. The “live fast, die young” thing is James Dean. It is Jack Kerouac. It is Lord Byron.
In our own time, we see this all around us. Be cool, drop out of school, get high, brag about ourselves. It’s just one manifestation of toxic masculinity.
But also take a look at the poem itself. Every word is a single syllable. And Brooks chooses to use enjambment rather than start each sentence at the beginning of the line. I believe this does two things.
First, it emphasizes - in different ways - the use of “we.” The phenomenon is a group one. Belonging to the group is the point, and the group is necessary for “cool.”
Second, it is a form of syncopation - of jazz. As a musician, this is very much tying the note across the bar line, an accent on the and of four. It swings. And that is why I never forgot it.
Next up is the title poem, a fascinating portrait.
The Bean Eaters
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.
As I mentioned, Emmett Till haunts much of this collection. This short one is heartbreaking, but also amazing.
The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till
After the Murder,
After the Burial
Emmett’s mother is a pretty-faced thing;
the tint of pulled taffy.
She sits in a red room,
drinking black coffee.
She kisses her killed boy.
And she is sorry.
Chaos in windy grays
through a red prairie.
Re-reading my favorites, I realize that it is the small portraits that spoke to me the most. Here is another.
The Crazy Woman
I shall not sing a May song.
A May song should be gay.
I’ll wait until November
And sing a song of gray.
I’ll wait until November.
That is the time for me.
I’ll go out in the frosty dark
And sing most terribly.
And all the little people
Will stare at me and say,
“That is the Crazy Woman
Who would not sing in May.”
I would be remiss if I didn’t feature at least one sonnet. I have always loved the form, and wrote a few in high school that were technically correct, but not particularly musical. Ah well. I chose two of them in this case, each in a somewhat different version of the form.
A Lovely Love
Let it be alleys. Let it be a hall
Whose janitor javelins epithet and thought
To cheapen hyacinth darkness that we sought
And played we found, rot, make the petals fall.
Let it be stairways, and a splintery box
Where you have thrown me, scraped me with your kiss,
Have honed me, have released me after this
Cavern kindness, smiled away our shocks.
That is the birthright of our lovely love
In swaddling clothes. Not like that Other one.
Not lit by any fondling star above.
Not found by any wise men, either. Run.
People are coming. They must not catch us here
Definitionless in this strict atmosphere.
Just what kind of love Brooks is describing is unknown, but it is illicit. They meet in alleys, they suffer slurs even from the janitor. Perhaps it is interracial. Perhaps it is queer. But it meets with social disapproval. It is definitionless.
And man, what a breathtaking poem it is. It is a sonnet, but Brooks breaks a rule. It is a sonnet, but it sounds modern and daring.
Let’s look at the form. It is in essence an Italian sonnet: two quatrains and a sestet. But the rhyme scheme breaks a rule. Rather than ABBAABBA, it is ABBACDDC. The sestet follows one of the many options: EFEFGG.
It also uses the divisions very well. Each quatrain is its own thought, separate yet related. Then the turn. The first four lines make the metaphor of divine birth explicit. This love may be forbidden, yet it is holy. And then it wraps up with an escape together.
Every so often, I run across a poem that is seemingly perfect, a polished gem that cannot be improved. This is one.
The last one is another sonnet, but in the Shakespearean form.
The Egg Boiler
Being you, you cut your poetry from wood.
The boiling of an egg is heavy art.
You come upon it as an artist should,
With rich-eyed passion, and with straining heart.
We fools, we cut our poems out of air,
Night color, wind soprano, and such stuff.
And sometimes weightlessness is much to bear.
You mock it, though you name it Not Enough.
The egg, spooned gently to the avid pan,
And left the strict three minutes, or the four,
Is your Enough and art for any man.
We fools give courteous ear - then cut some more,
Shaping a gorgeous Nothingness from cloud.
You watch us, eat your egg, and laugh aloud.
It is a bit of a curious poem. I think Brooks is poking a bit of fun at the formalist tendencies of mid-20th Century poetry. An egg is real, genuine, concrete. It is grounded in experience. Clouds and air are not - they are mere form in the poetic sense, without lasting substance. It is a more light-hearted poem than others in the collection, and a great note to end on.
I highly recommend Gwendolyn Brooks as one of the finest American poets of all time. And I also recommend exploring the works of black poets in general. Their voices are crucial to understanding America, and understanding what it means to be fully human. I am never disappointed when I pick up a volume of these poems.
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