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Gwendolyn Brooks and Her Worth to the Literary Canon

The paper examines Gwendolyn Brooks and her worth to the literary canon.

As we have already mentioned, Gwendolyn Brooks' talent made an outstanding contribution into the U.S. poetry. The first half of her creative life she created the poems that were known for their traditional literary form and language, however, the second half of her career was devoted to the experiments with the urban black vernacular and free verse. Yet, it should be taken into consideration that despite all difficulties Gwendolyn Brooks encountered during her life, her thematic focus has remained the same, as she devoted her verses to the lives of ordinary people, to the problems of poverty, struggle for freedom and independence, racist and outrage against African Americans, and their attempts to obtain better lives and to struggle against the devastating attitude towards them.

The outstanding talent of Gwendolyn Brooks makes her poetry to sound live. Her bold appeal, vivid rhymes, and amazing charm of her verses found recognition among the most famous people all over the world. For example, George E. Kent considers that "Brooks shares with Langston Hughes the achievement of being most responsive to turbulent changes in the Black Community's vision of itself and to the changing forms of its vibrations during decades of rapid change. The depth of her responsiveness and her range of poetic resources make her one of the most distinguished poets to appear in America during the 20th Century." (Kent, 1990)

Drastic transformations occurred in the conscience of modern writers and poets from many countries, including the United States. The poets, such as Gwendolyn Brooks, refused from the idea that traditional forms, ideas, and concepts of history are able to fill the human life with the meaningful context. The events that took place soon after World War II made people believe that every moment, action, and feeling should be treated like something that will never take place again. Gwendolyn Brooks was, probably, the first African American poet, who understood the necessity to create a truthful picture of reality, as she was describing the lives of blacks who have to withstand racism, poverty, misfortune, inequality, and other troubles they face in their daily lives (Melhem, 1987). The literary style and literary form were treated like some sort of conditional, like some improvisation reflecting the creative process and self-conscience. All these changes were introduced into the modern American poetry by Gwendolyn Brooks in her amazingly sensitive works.

During the period of time, when Gwendolyn Brooks lived and worked, literary categories and forms, that were so usual and easy to understand, the expressions of literary thought and mind became somewhat suspicious, as the originality was raised to the status of the new literary tradition in poetry. Gwendolyn Brooks managed to combine usual literary forms with originality of thought and literary talent.

Gwendolyn Brooks managed to retain the continuity of poetical tradition along with the desire to inspire new life into the U.S. poetry. She used both traditional and innovative techniques in order to make her poems sound unique. Gwendolyn Brooks became the most talented U.S. poet, as she masterly used traditional rhymes and fixed metrics along with the bright and vivid colorings, shades, and tones that made her poems breathe.

The poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks is known for refined nature, piety before the elements, and in-depth conservatism. At the same time, one can easily notice that her works are tradition-oriented. The distinctive features of her works (similar to other poets - traditionalists) the exactness of her portrayals, realistic nature, some tendency for paradoxes, and, probably, even metaphysics. Her poetry serves a brilliant example of how the poet is able to reach transparent exactness by using rhymes and formally fixed literary structure.

In contrast to other poets, whose works ruin the poetical and vague 'tissue' of the poem, Gwendolyn Brooks likes to use sound and abrupt, sometimes too emotional words and phrases (Kent, 1990). It seems that Gwendolyn Brooks likes to use rhetorical archaisms, rare words and word combinations, adjectives and inversions. All these features make traditionally English language to play with bright colors, thus changing it significantly. Sometimes this effect is created by noble poetic style, while sometimes the poems look too stilted, as they hardly have connection with the real emotions and experience. Sometimes the flow of conscience makes the integral whole with paradoxes, naughty play on words, and literary allusions thus attaching the poems the charm of their own and making the reader thunderstruck by the emotional height of Gwendolyn Brooks' feelings.

At the age of 16 Gwendolyn Brooks had about 75 poems published. Soon she took part in the poetry workshops in Chicago South Side Community Art Center (Brooks, 1972). It was Inez Cunningham Stark who taught Gwendolyn Brooks the basic principles of poetry. Actually, Inez Cunningham inspired Brooks to create her own verses, although they could be too strange or too untimely, as she inspired the poetess to develop her own poetic voice, even if Brook's voice sounded differently from those what Inez Cunningham herself recognized and appreciated. Interesting enough, but Gwendolyn Brooks' talent was so evident that very soon her poems started to attract attention not only in the poetry workshop, but both inside and outside Chicago. It was the beginning of her career as a poetess.

Several years later, in 1943 the poetess has won a poetry award from Midwestern Writers' Conference (Brooks, 1972). In 1945 she decided to publish a collection of her verses and sent them to Harper amp; Row. It was the collection "A Street in Bronzeville", where the poetess presented daily chronicles of the lives of ordinary black people, and spoke about their sufferings, pain, disappointments, along with happiness, and daily joys. This collection was recognized as the collection with amazingly innovative poetic and literary style, rich in idioms, metaphors, realistic descriptions, fresh rhymes, and perfect use of imagery. Arguably, this collection of verses made her poems to be famous, and soon enough the poetess has won another award - she was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship and was named one out of ten women of the year by Mademoiselle magazine.

The second collection of poems appeared relatively soon, in 1949, under the name "Annie Allen". No wonder that "Annie Allen" made the poetess even more popular and, what is even more, it was this collection of poetry, due to which Gwendolyn Brooks was awarded the first Pulitzer Prize that was ever granted to the black poet. "Annie Allen" was very close to a prose narrative by its structure, and the verses there were telling the reader the story of a journey made by the black woman Annie from her childhood to the adulthood. Discrimination, racism, and poverty were the dominant themes in this collection of poetry.

Gwendolyn Brooks' poetry is appraised by literary critics for the poet's subtle irony and humor, skillful and masterly handling of conventional stanzaic forms; however, one of the most interesting things the poet has brought into the modern American poetry is her unique invention of the sonnet-ballad, - a specific verse structure that integrates a formal diction and colloquial speech (Madhubuti, 1987).

Brook's next creative work was published under the name "Maud Martha" in 1953 (Brooks, 1972). This novel was also dedicated to the issues of racism, discrimination, classism and sexist. The novel was written on behalf of the black woman and was as shocking, affecting and lyrical, as almost all Brook's works. Brook's success was followed by the publication of hew next collection of poetry, The Bean Eaters, that was published in 1960 and was devoted to the integration of the school system in Arkansas, civil rights movement and other social issues. The Bean Eaters was written in a completely different poetic style, as this collection was rather the experiment with free verses than the adherence to traditional forms of poetry.

The difference between the old and new literary styles was so evident that even Brooks herself claimed in her "Say That the River Turns: The Impact of Gwendolyn Brooks", "The forties and fifties were years of high poetincense; the language-flowers were thickly sweet. Those flowers whined and begged white folks to pick them, to find them lovable. Then-the sixties: Independent fire!" (Madhubuti, 1987)

In conclusion it may be said that taking into account all unique features of Gwendolyn Brooks ' literary style, the poet made significant contribution into the Literary Canon not only in the United States, but became one of the most famous women poets - the representatives of the modern poetry - all over the world.

References

Brooks, G. (1972). Report from Part One: An Autobiography. Broadside Press.

Kent, G. E. (1990). Gwendolyn Brooks: A Life. Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky.

Madhubuti, H. R. (Ed.). (1987). Say That the River Turns: The Impact of Gwendolyn Brooks. Third World Press.

Melhem, D. (1987). Gwendolyn Brooks: Poetry and the Heroic Voice. University Press of Kentucky.