Gwendolyn Brooks: April 21, 1997

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The Poetry Center presents Gwendolyn Brooks, reading at Wheeler Hall, the University of California, Berkeley, at an event co-sponsored by the UC Berkeley English Department and The Poetry Center. Brooks reads poems published at the time in magazines and newspapers, selections from Winnie (Third World Press, 1991), A Street in Bronzeville (Harper & Bros., 1945), In Montgomery, and Other Poems (Third World Press, 2003), Children Coming Home (David Co., 1991), The Bean Eaters (Harper & Bros., 1960), The Near-Johannesburg Boy (David Co., 1987), and Gottschalk and the Grand Tarantelle (David Co., 1988), commenting throughout on her work. Black studies scholar and UC Berkeley professor Barbara Christian contributes at the close of the recording. Note: This recording is audio only. Photo of Gwendolyn Brooks, April 21, 1997, by Jewelle Gomez.

Originally Recorded By: APA
Location: Wheeler Hall, University of California, Berkeley
Date: 04/21/1997
Total Run Time: 01:07:03
Contributor: Barbara Christian, Jewelle Gomez
Rights: ©© American Poetry Archives. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. For all other uses please email poetry@sfsu.edu
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Gwendolyn Brooks (01:07:03)

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The recording begins in medias res, with Gwendolyn Brooks' reading from her pamphlet of poems, Winnie, and commenting on the subject of love. She then reads "when you have forgotten Sunday: the love story," from A Street in Bronzeville, and "Behind the Scenes," later to appear in her book In Montgomery, and Other Poems. Brooks then reads "The Coora Flower," "Nineteen Cows in a Slow Line Walking," "White Girls Are Peculiar People," "I Am a Black," "Religion," "Uncle Seagram," and "Puzzlement" from Children Coming Home. These are followed with readings of "the mother," from A Street in Bronzeville, "We Real Cool," from The Bean Eaters, "An Old Black Woman, Homeless and Indistinct," from In Montgomery, "A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon," from The Bean Eaters, "Ballad of Pearl May Lee," from A Street in Bronzeville, "Gottschalk and the Grande Tarantelle," and "Infirm," the latter from The Near-Johannesburg Boy. Brooks then discusses when she started writing poetry, and Barbara Christian announces a gifting program established in Gwendolyn Brooks' name. Note: Some audio noises and breaches occur in the recording.