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Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brooks Books

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Selected poems

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Annie Allen

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Blacks

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In the Mecca

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Related Quotes

“When You Have Forgotten Sunday: The Love Story -- And when you have forgotten the bright bedclothes on a Wednesday and a Saturday, And most especially when you have forgotten Sunday -- When you have forgotten Sunday halves in bed, Or me sitting on the front-room radiator in the limping afternoon Looking off down the long street To nowhere, Hugged by my plain old wrapper of no-expectation And nothing-I-have-to-do and I’m-happy-why? And if-Monday-never-had-to-come— When you have forgotten that, I say, And how you swore, if somebody beeped the bell, And how my heart played hopscotch if the telephone rang; And how we finally went in to Sunday dinner, That is to say, went across the front room floor to the ink-spotted table in the southwest corner To Sunday dinner, which was always chicken and noodles Or chicken and rice And salad and rye bread and tea And chocolate chip cookies -- I say, when you have forgotten that, When you have forgotten my little presentiment That the war would be over before they got to you; And how we finally undressed and whipped out the light and flowed into bed, And lay loose-limbed for a moment in the week-end Bright bedclothes, Then gently folded into each other— When you have, I say, forgotten all that, Then you may tell, Then I may believe You have forgotten me well.”

LoveForgetting
Book:The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks:
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“my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell I hold my honey and I store my bread In little jars and cabinets of my will. I label clearly, and each latch and lid I bid, Be firm till I return from hell. I am very hungry. I am incomplete. And none can tell when I may dine again. No man can give me any word but Wait, The puny light. I keep eyes pointed in; Hoping that, when the devil days of my hurt Drag out to their last dregs and I resume On such legs as are left me, in such heart As I can manage, remember to go home, My taste will not have turned insensitive To honey and bread old purity could love.”

WaitingDreamsWorks
Book:Selected poems
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“Truth And if sun comes How shall we greet him? Shall we not dread him, Shall we not fear him After so lengthy a Session with shade? Though we have wept for him, Though we have prayed All through the night-years— What if we wake one shimmering morning to Hear the fierce hammering Of his firm knuckles Hard on the door? Shall we not shudder?— Shall we not flee Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter Of the familiar Propitious haze? Sweet is it, sweet is it To sleep in the coolness Of snug unawareness. The dark hangs heavily Over the eyes.”

PoetryDarkness
Book:Blacks
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“When I hear Marian Anderson sing, I am a STUFFless kind of thing, Heart is like the flying air, I cannot find it anywhere. Fingers tingle. I am cold And warm and young and very old. But, most, I am a STUFFless thing When I hear Marian Anderson sing.”

PoetryMusicPoemSingersAfrican AmericansBlacksMarian AndersonVocalists
Book:Bronzeville Boys and Girls: A Picture Book of Classic Poetry About Urban Life and Childhood for Kids
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“The civil rights situation is like a pregnancy. It will get worse, I believe, before it gets better. What the usual pregnancy comes to is a decent baby. That is what we all hope will be the end product of this stress. It is customary, at the end of a pregnancy, to have for your pains a decent baby.”

BelieveEndsPainI BelieveSituationRightsProductsBabyRacismStressCivil RightsGet BetterDecentPregnancyUsualIt Gets Better
Book:Conversations with Gwendolyn Brooks
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