Eric MustinEnglish 487WProfessor HarringtonApril 29, 2010

Giving Two Figs: The Sonnet and The Black ArtsGwendolyn Brooks is a matron of African American Poetry. Born in 1917, she

lived through both World Wars, the passage of the nineteenth amendment, and the civil

rights movement. She even lived into the new millennium, passing away in December

2000. Her poetry is a voice for the American minority. She speaks for the economic,

social, and racial injustices that plague twentieth century American history. Her voice,

however, does not exist in isolation. Although her work can be read and enjoyed on it’s

own, there is a chorus of contemporaries that accompany her writing with their own

perspectives on American injustice and inequality. To understand her merits, one must

compare her poetry to fellow African American poets.

Brooks is typically lumped within the Black Arts Movement. (Thomas 217) This

literary movement, typified by Leroi Jones’(aka Amiri Baraka) poem “Black Art”, works

against literary and social convention present in the 1960’s.

Poems are bullshit unless they areTeeth or trees or lemons piledon a step. Or black ladies dyingof men leaving nickel heartbeating them down. Fuck poems (1-5)

Exemplified in Baraka’s work, it is a movement that worked against racism. “In

order to perform this task, the Black Arts Movement propose[d] a radical reordering of

the western cultural aesthetic”(Neal 29). Brooks did not. While her poetry defied

stereotypes, it did not defy convention. Unlike the majority of African American poets

publishing in the second half of the twentieth century, Brooks embraces musicality and

romanticism, relying on these classical poetic structures rather than rejecting their old-

fashioned value. Although Brooks did show stylistic influence from the Black Arts

movement in her later work, her early work still addresses racial injustice without

rejecting form. In her Sonnet Sequences “The Children of the Poor” and “Gay Chaps at

the Bar”, as well as in her later sonnet references, Gwendolyn Brooks criticizes the social

construction of race with the same vigor and clarity as Black Arts poets in the decades

that followed.

Brooks published her first major work, A Street In Bronzeville, in 1945. These

poems are written from different voices, and each voice constructs race and identity

differently in the aftermath of World War Two. However, though unique, each voice

shares a common trait. They are influenced by how others view them in American

society, the assumptions other Americans make about them. These voices are not just

“relying on the fact of color to draw sympathy and interest”(Gery 45), as evident in the

last sonnet of the sequence “the progress”. In it, the voice represents war veterans, not

just African Americans, although the two groups are not mutually exclusive. The veterans

return to the United States and “Still we wear our uniforms”(1) and “Salute the flag, thrill

heavily, rejoice/ For death of men who too saluted, sang”(7-8). Internally, however, they

are worried whether they can come to terms with their wartime experiences and “smile,

congratulate: and how/ Settle in chairs?”(12-13) But fellow American’s view them as war

heroes, and they feel obliged to maintain an outward façade of patriotism.

This outward façade continues to be apparent, and is explicitly racial, in the

eponymous sonnet of the sequence, “gay chaps at the bar”. Once again, Brooks takes on

the voice of soldiers, but this voice is concerned less with patriotism and more with “How

to make a look an omen”(9), knowing “white speech”(9), “how to order”(1) at a white

bar, and “when to persist”(8) with courting women. And just like the soldiers in “the

progress”, who have conflicted inner feelings, these “gay chaps at the bar” are also

unsure of how “to be islands”(10) in a sea of barroom patrons. Both groups of soldiers

have trouble balancing inner African American identity with outward assimilation.

The idea of outward appearance is expressed again in “still do I keep my look, my

identity”, the second sonnet of the sequence. Though it is written in the third person, and

does not touch on race or patriotism, it’s opening stanza maintains the construction of

identity that Brooks establishes in the first sonnet.

Each body has its art, its precious prescribedPose. That even in passion’s droll contortions, waltzes,Or push of pain – or when a grief has stabbed,Or hatred hacked – is its, and nothing else’s. (1-4)

The “look”(13) that someone gives off to others is what makes them who they

are, the same way an army uniform or a drink order determines their identity.

Expressed by Brooks in 1945 through Petrarchan sonnets, it is an idea revisited by

Don L. Lee(aka Haki Madhubuti) in his 1963 free verse poem, “The Self Hatred of Don

L. Lee”:

I/ Began/ To love/ Only a/ Part of/Me-/My inner/Self which/Is all/Black-/&/developed a/vehement/hatred of/my light/brown/outer. (24-40)

Madhubuti feels conflicts between the negative connotations of being a light

skinned African American, and his inner feelings of wanting to empower African

Americans. This poem, radically structured, offers the same “presentation of racial

identity….[that] have less to do with audience than with voice”(Gery 44) that Brooks

does in her formal structure. Even though Madhubuti rejects rhyme and Brooks depends

on it, and Brooks chooses line breaks based on form while Madhubuti breaks lines based

on effect, Brooks believes that “in 1945 I was saying what many of the young folks said

in the sixties”(Tate 42). Both authors feel that race is an inner identity that conflicts with

their outer identity’s place.

Morrison’s next publication, Annie Allen, shows more maturity and political focus

than her earlier poems. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1950, it takes on the voice of the

title character, and traces her journey through an idealistic childhood to a failed marriage,

and finally, a realistic outlook to the future for her children. It is in this last portion that

Morrison returns to the sonnet form, this time with less concern for form and more

concern for content. Whereas in her earlier sonnets she tried to cope with race through

personas and internalization, in the sonnets “The children of the poor” she takes a more

proactive stance, and “addresses the black community as a kind of female preacher, a role

that would have been denied to her in the more traditional structure of the black

church.”(Wheeler 231) In the fourth sonnet of the sequence she implores her audience to

fight against assimilation and to find their own space in America.

But first to arms, to armor. Carry hateIn front of you and harmony behind.Be deaf to music and to beauty blind. (9-11)

In order “to civilize a space”(13) where the African American community can feel

unprosecuted and be allowed to “play your violin with grace”(14), Brooks believes they

must first become more determined. Brooks is making this call to arms out of

experience, and in the hope that future generations won’t have to share the same

experience as her. This hope for a new African American space in American society is

apparent in the final stanza of the final sonnet in the sequence.

Not that success, for him, is sure, infallible.But he never has been afraid to reach.

His lesions are legion.But reaching is his rule.(15-18)

Brooks believes that the younger generation of African American society will

empower themselves more than her generation because “he has never been afraid”(10) of

the stereotypes and limitations imposed by racism. Although, as mentioned in the second

sonnet in the sequence, the children of the poor are “contraband”(6) “lepers”(3) that “are

adjudged the leastwise of the land”(2), through action they can gain power. Even though

her rhetoric, “nor grief nor love, shall be enough alone”(12) to gain that power, because

they are young they still have potential. Unlike her earlier poems which were largely

about internal struggle, these poems “acknowledg[e] the public role poetry can exercise,

the multiplicity of potential readers, the world context and not only the intimate indoor

spaces in which poetry is often composed and read”(Wheeler 231). Although she is using

the sonnet form, typically a cathartic device that bemoans unrequited love, she is

reconfiguring it as a tool for civil rights activism.

The empowerment that Brooks began to conceptualize at the beginning of the

fifties, many poets of the Black Arts movement later vocalized in their work. Like

Brooks, Black Arts poet Sonia Sanchez makes a similar call to action that traces the

experience of previous generations as precursors to the potential of African American

youth, in her 1984 poem “Reflections After the June 12th March for Disarmament”:

I have come to say that those yearswere not in vain, the ghosts of our ancestors searching this American dust for rest were not in vain, black women walking their lives in clots were not in vain, the years walked sideways in a forsaken land were not in vain; (23-30)

Although Sanchez post-dates the Black Arts movement by nearly a decade with

this poem, she was nonetheless an integral part of the movement at the time. Sanchez

relies on anaphora in her poem, but uses it to improve her message, much like Brooks

uses the sonnet to improve her message to the children of the poor. Sanchez also reflects

Brooks’ belief that “the poet should write out of his own milieu”(Stavros 14). Although

her poetry is more wide-ranging than Brooks’, touching on subjects from the “b.t.

washington years”(15) to the “neo-conservative years”(22), she also is speaking from a

more progressive decade that used these references colloquially. Regardless of time

period, at the heart of their poetry both authors take a “maternal rhetorical

position”(Wheeler 229) to empower their audience.

By the late 1960’s, Gwendolyn Brooks had almost entirely transformed herself

from a lyric poet to a preacher. Poetry that was once light hearted and lyric became

increasingly socially conscious within “the explicit context of race riots”(Wheeler 227).

Her 1968 publication, In the Mecca, focused on economic problems in Chicago’s housing

projects. Still, within this unromantic context Brooks maintains a connection to the

sonnets form of her earlier writing. In “The Second Sermon On The Warpland” she

references “the pet bird of poets, that sweetest sonnets”(8) which cannot “straddle the

whirlwind”(9) “that is the chaotic world of 1968”(Wheeler 232). This shows Brooks

changing belief in her role as a poet. By rejecting the sonnet form, she is also rejecting

African American writers who, Brooks claims, “twist their language and put in a few big-

sounding words here and there, and try to obscure their meaning, thinking this will make

the white literary establishment love them.”(Black Women Writers 45)

This belief that the sonnet can accomplish little is furthered in “The Third Sermon

On The Warpland”, published in 1981 in the collection To Disembark. Speaking on

behalf of “The Black Philosopher”(4) she had not only rejects the sonnet as a pet of

poets, but also as a tool “in the keep of the keeper/ in a labeled cabinet/ on the second

shelf by the cookies,/ the sonatas, the arabesques”(5-8). She believes that the sonnet is

nothing more than a snack or a fanciful pattern, lacking the depth necessary to be useful

to the African American community.

This changing belief in an oppressor of the African American community is

reflected through Amiri Baraka’s changing beliefs. Like Brooks in the 1960’s, Baraka

also wrote poetry as a form of African American empowerment. However, just as

Brooks’ tone changed in “The Second Sermon On The Warpland” due to race riots,

Baraka also adopted a different tone due to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 in

his poem, “Somebody Blew Up America”.

Who own the oil Who want more oil Who told you what you think that later you find out a lie Who/ Who/ ???

Who fount Bin Laden, maybe they Satan Who pay the CIA, Who knew the bomb was gonna blow Who know why the  terrorists   

Learned to fly in Florida, San Diego (134-142)

Although Baraka faced criticism for his reactionary and factually incorrect take

on 9/11, he ascribes to the same anti-establishment beliefs that Brooks adopted in her

later poetry. Whereas Brooks used lyric poetry to convey her ideas, Baraka takes a more

accusatory, less poetic tone in his work. Both poets, however, espouse a dislike for white

literary establishment and try to work against it in their poetry.

Brooks, like any good artist, evolved throughout her career. It’s hard to

concretely define her as Black Arts Movement poet, even though parallels exist, because

her style and content change in each work. However, a constant in these works is a

foundation in classical conventions. From the sonnet sequences of her early works to the

critical sonnet references in her later ones, Gwendolyn Brooks draws upon a long history

of literary forms to help convey her themes. More importantly, she adds to that literary

history. Although her legacy may lie in her more popular poems about Chicago youth,

she will continue to exhibit influence over generations of poets who follow in her pursuit

of equality.

Works Cited

Brooks, Gwendolyn. Blacks. Chicago, Ill. (P.O. Box 19355, Chicago, Ill. 60619): David,1987. Print.

Black Women Writers at Work. Ed. Claudia Tate. New York: Continuum, 1983, 39-48.

Brooks, Gwendolyn, and George Stavros. "An Interview with Gwendolyn Brooks."Contemporary Literature Winter 11.1 (1970): 1-20. Web.

Gery, John. "Subversive Parody in the Early Poems of Gwendolyn Broo." South CentralReview Spring 16.1 (1999): 44-56. Web.

Harper, Michael S., and Anthony Walton. The Vintage Book of African American Poetry.New York: Vintage, 2000. Print.

Neal, Larry. "The Black Arts Movement." The Drama Review: TDR Summer 12.4(1968): 29-39. Web.

Thomas, Lorenzo. Extraordinary measures Afrocentric modernism and twentieth-centuryAmerican poetry. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama, 2000. Print.

Wheeler, Lesley. "Heralding the Clear Obscure: Gwendolyn Brooks and Apostrophe."Callaloo Winter 24.1 (2001): 227-35. Web.