名人轶事:Gwendolyn Brooks（在线收听）

By Cynthia Kirk

Broadcast: March 20, 2005

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VOICE ONE:

I’m Shirley Griffith.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Sarah Long with the VOA Special English program, PEOPLE IN AMERICA.

Today we tell about the life of award-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks. She was

the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize for Literature.

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VOICE ONE:

Gwendolyn Brooks wrote hundreds of poems during her lifetime. She had more

than twenty books published. She was known around the world for using poetry

to increase understanding about black culture in America.

Gwendolyn Brooks wrote many poems about being black during the Nineteen-

Forties and Nineteen-Fifties. Her poems described conditions among the poor,

racial inequality and drug use in the black community. She also wrote poems

about the struggles of black women.

But her skill was more than her ability to write about struggling black

people. She was an expert at the language of poetry. She combined traditional

European poetry styles with the African American experience.

VOICE TWO:

Gwendolyn Brooks once said that she wrote about what she saw and heard in the

street. She said she found most of her material looking out of the window of

her second-floor apartment house in Chicago, Illinois.

In her early poetry, Gwendolyn Brooks wrote about the South Side of Chicago.

The South Side of Chicago is where many black people live. In her poems, the

South Side is called Bronzeville. It was “A Street in Bronzeville” that

gained the attention of literary experts in Nineteen-Forty-Five. Critics

praised her poetic skill and her powerful descriptions about the black

experience during the time. The Bronzeville poems were her first published

collection.

Here she is reading from her Nineteen-Forty-Five collection, “A Street in

Bronzeville.”

((GWENDOLYN BROOKS))

“My father, it is surely a blue place and straight. Right, regular, where I

shall find no need for scholarly nonchalance or looks a little to the left or

guards upon the heart.”

VOICE ONE:

In Nineteen-Fifty, Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African-American to win

the Pulitzer Prize for Literature. She won the prize for her second book of

poems called “Annie Allen.” “Annie Allen” is a collection of poetry about

the life of a Bronzeville girl as a daughter, a wife and mother. She

experiences loneliness, loss, death and being poor.

Mizz Brooks said that winning the prize changed her life.

Her next work was a novel written in Nineteen-Fifty-Three called “Maud

Martha.” “Maud Martha” received little notice when it first was published.

But now it is considered an important work by some critics. Its main ideas

about the difficult life of many women are popular among female writers

today.

VOICE TWO:

Gwendolyn Brooks wrote poems about the black experience in America. She

described the anger many blacks had about racial injustice and the feeling of

being different. She used poetry to criticize those who did not show respect

for the poor. Yet for all the anger in her writing, Gwendolyn Brooks was

considered by many to be a gentle spirit and a very giving person.

By the early Nineteen-Sixties, Mizz Brooks had reached a high point in her

writing career. She was considered one of America’s leading black writers.

She was a popular teacher. She was praised for her use of language and the

way people identified with her writing.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Gwendolyn Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas in Nineteen-Seventeen. But she

grew up in Chicago. She began writing when she was eleven years old. She

mailed several poems to a community newspaper in Chicago to surprise her

family.#p#副标题#e#

In a radio broadcast in Nineteen-Sixty-One, Mizz Brooks said her mother urged

her to develop her poetic skills:
(GWENDOLYN BROOKS)

“My mother took me to the library when I was about four or five. I enjoyed

reading poetry and I tried to write it when I was about seven, at the time

that I first tried to put rhymes together. And I have loved it ever since.”

VOICE TWO:

Gwendolyn Brooks married Henry L. Blakely in Nineteen-Thirty-Nine. Henry

Blakely was a young writer who later published his own poetry. They lived in

Chicago for the next thirty years, divorced in Nineteen-Sixty-Nine, but re-

united in Nineteen-Seventy-Three. They had two children, Nora Brooks Blakely

and Henry Blakely.

Throughout her life, Mizz Brooks supported herself through speaking

appearances, poetry readings and part time teaching in colleges. She also

received money from organizations that offered grants designed to support the

arts.

VOICE ONE:

One of Gwendolyn Brooks most famous poems is called “We Real Cool”. It is a

short poem that talks about young people feeling hopeless:

We real cool. We left school. We lurk late. We strike straight. We sing sin.

We thin gin. We jazz June. We die soon.

VOICE TWO:

By the end of the Nineteen-Sixties, Gwendolyn Brooks’s poetry expanded from

the everyday experiences of people in Bronzeville. She wrote about a wider

world and dealt with important political issues. She won praise for her

sharper, real-life poetic style.


Gwendolyn Brooks was affected by the civil rights struggles and social

changes taking place in America. She began to question her relations with

whites. She said she felt that black poets should write for black people.


That became evident in her next collection of poetry in Nineteen-Sixty-Eight

called “In the Mecca.” Critics suggested Mizz Brooks had become too

political and seemed to be writing only for black people. Her new poems

received little notice in the press.


VOICE ONE:

In some of her poems, Gwendolyn Brooks’ described how what people see in

life is affected by who they are. One example is this poem, “Corners on the

Curving Sky”:

Our earth is round, and, among other things

That means that you and I can hold completely different

Points of view and both be right.

The difference of our positions will show

Stars in your window. I cannot even imagine.

Your sky may burn with light,

While mine, at the same moment,

Spreads beautiful to darkness.

Still, we must choose how we separately corner

The circling universe of our experience

Once chosen, our cornering will determine

The message of any star and darkness we encounter.

VOICE TWO:

Although her poetry did not receive much notice in the press, Gwendolyn

Brooks continued to receive honors. She was chosen poet laureate of the state

of Illinois in Nineteen-Sixty-Eight. In Nineteen-Seventy-Six, she became the

first black woman to be elected to the National Institute of Arts and

Letters. She received a lifetime achievement award from the National

Endowment for the Arts in Nineteen-Eighty-Nine. And she was named the

Nineteen-Ninety-Four Jefferson Lecturer by the National Endowment for the

Humanities. That is the highest honor given by the federal government for

work in the humanities.

Mizz Brooks once said that of all the awards she received, there was only one

that meant a lot to her. It was given to her at a workshop in an old theater

in Chicago. She said: “I was given an award for just being me, and that’s

what poetry is to me – just being me.”

VOICE ONE:

Although she was well-known, Gwendolyn Brooks lived a quiet life. She said

her greatest interest was being involved with young people. She spent time

giving readings at schools, prisons and hospitals. She also attended yearly

poetry competitions for Chicago children. She often paid for the awards given

to the winners.

Haki Madhubuti directs the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Creative Writing and

Black Literature at Chicago State University. He said Mizz Brooks felt

children would help lead the way toward healing the wounds of the United

States civil rights movement of the Nineteen-Sixties. One young student

talked about how Mizz Brooks’ poetry affected her. She said that Gwendolyn

Brooks’ writings influenced her to write down how she truly feel deep

inside.

VOICE TWO:

Gwendolyn Brooks influenced many African-American writers. Friends say her

prize-winning works also helped other black Americans to develop their own

sense of identity and culture.

Doctors discovered Mizz Brooks had cancer in November, Two-Thousand. She died

December Third at her home in Chicago. She was eighty-three.

The funeral service was held on the South Side, the same area of the city

that had been a window for much of Mizz Brooks’s poetry. The service was at

times filled with laughter. There were warm remembrances of a woman whose

life and words had touched people forever. African drums sounded and dancers

leaped.

((THEME))

VOICE ONE:

This Special English program was written and produced by Cynthia Kirk. I’m

Shirley Griffith.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Sarah Long. Join us again next week for another PEOPLE IN AMERICA

program on the Voice of America.


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