Gwendolyn Brooks
Haki R. Madhubuti
Joanne V. Gabbin
Preferred Citation:
Friday Keynote Speeches Part 2, 9/30/1994 (FF022). Transcribed and edited by Evan Sizemore, 2021-2022, part of the Mellon-funded AudiAnnotate Audiovisual Extensible Workflow Project. Based on video recordings made by WVPT to document the first Furious Flower Poetry Center decennial meeting, September 29-October 1, 1994. Part of the Furious Flower Poetry Center Conference Records, 1970-2015, UA 0018, Special Collections, Carrier Library, James Madison University Libraries, Harrisonburg, Virginia, media file FF031. Collection finding aid: https://aspace.lib.jmu.edu/repositories/4/resources/487.
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| 52:26 - 52:27 | [Dr. Gabbin holds up conference booklet] | Environment |
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| 0:01 - 0:23 | --I wonder how many others have regarded this connection? And no, James Baldwin did not start the fire. He foretold it's coming. He was a pre-reporter. He was a prophet, his friends | Transcription |
| 0:23 - 0:31 | enjoy calling him Jimmy. (Remember that he was alive when I wrote this). And that is easy to understand. | Transcription |
| 0:32 - 0:55 | The man is love personified. He has a sweet, softly loving, endearing smile. He has a voice that can range from eerie, effortless menace -- menace educational and creative -- to this low, cradling, | Transcription |
| 0:55 - 0:59 | insinuating, and involving love. | Transcription |
| 0:59 - 1:20 | This love is at once both father and son to a massive concern. A concern for his own people, surely. But for the cleansing the extension of all the world's categories, no less surely, since he knows | Transcription |
| 1:20 - 1:29 | surely that the fortunes of these over here affect inevitably, the fortunes of those over there. | Transcription |
| 1:30 - 1:54 | Essayist, novelist, poet, playwright, new French Legion of Honor medalist (and he was at that time), human being, being human! And I said James Baldwin, and the crowd went wild! Angela Jackson is an | Transcription |
| 1:54 - 2:02 | experimenter. She respects many people, but she long ago decided not to sound like them. | Transcription |
| 2:03 - 2:22 | So she ended up sounding like Angela Jackson. So many little twists and turns in her work. Rarely are you prepared for them. So many satisfying perceptions of actuals, we recognize remember, or are | Transcription |
| 2:22 - 2:43 | now ready to learn. Such impudent portraits of people. People she paints or invents. Such combos of colloquial and obscure, bound to confound and delight. And I say: well, here is something different | Transcription |
| 2:43 - 2:45 | for your dinner. | Transcription |
| 2:45 - 3:04 | I hope there are some award givers in the audience here. You remember these names. Michael Harper believes that delight is possible for the reader, as well as the creator of poetry. Believes that the | Transcription |
| 3:04 - 3:21 | reader, when permitted, participates in the act of creation, extending often this wonder of making within the limits, of course, of individual experience and fantasy. | Transcription |
| 3:22 - 3:43 | Well, Michael Harper is right there to cooperate with this need of the reader. Further, in much of his poetry, he has defied the Orthodox, the alien, the prescribed, the timid, and the dim. His work | Transcription |
| 3:43 - 3:60 | with language is various and respectful. Here is the author of the classic A Mother Speaks: The Algiers Motel Incident, Detroit, and of other shapely and persuasive excellences. | Transcription |
| 3:60 - 4:18 | And he did read that poem yesterday. I was just sitting there, daring him to omit it, as he often does. Because I think that's my favorite among the poems that he has written. And I'm so glad that I | Transcription |
| 4:18 - 4:30 | didn't have to shout up from the audience for Rita to read The Island Women of Paris, which among all of her many rich poems is my favorite. Thank you. | Transcription |
| 4:32 - 4:57 | Now let's see now. I have -- I had six Chicano poets: Sandra Cisneros, Luis Omar Salinas, Alberto Ríos, and Lorna Dee Cervantes. But I'm not going to read those notes. I wanted to, but we don't have | Transcription |
| 4:57 - 4:59 | that much time. | Transcription |
| 4:60 - 5:17 | Because I do want you to hear some of my poetry. There are people here, I'm sure, who have never heard a single one of my poems. Before I come to Haki and Sonia, I can't resist reading this little | Transcription |
| 5:17 - 5:23 | squib that introduced Louis Simpson. Do many of you know Louis Simpson? | Transcription |
| 5:25 - 5:40 | I started out by saying: Something wicked, this way comes. Here comes Louis Simpson -- He was sitting there getting redder and redder as he listened to this -- Here comes Louis Simpson, communicator | Transcription |
| 5:40 - 6:02 | of intricate darkness of feeling and instinct. So says Donald Hall. Firey defender of Gary Snyder, accused universally. Certain circles cite him as coldly capable of exhaustive wickedness. | Transcription |
| 6:04 - 6:23 | Not I, I didn't say so. For almost two decades, he has been soundly spanked for opining that if blacks write only about Blackness, they are inadequate. That they are, in fact, non-poets. | Transcription |
| 6:25 - 6:42 | You decide for yourselves whether or not that's wicked. But I myself found out how dangerous Simpson the savior can be. I remember with delight that years ago, at Stony Brook, I was having a lovely | Transcription |
| 6:42 - 7:04 | peaceful lunch with this poet and teacher, in a cheerfully sunny room, when I made the quotes, "mistake", end quotes, of saying that there were no Grrrreat (capital G and lots of Rs), Grrrreat poets, | Transcription |
| 7:05 - 7:08 | living and writing today. | Transcription |
| 7:08 - 7:29 | That was some years ago. What we -- that we know of, that is, because of course there is always some unknown genius, toiling at the top of a tenement, about to burst full-bodied and beautiful and | Transcription |
| 7:29 - 7:40 | persuasive upon the populace. "No great poets? Gary Snyder!", screamed Louis. | Transcription |
| 7:41 - 8:02 | He turned red -- he can do that -- and lifting himself to hellish height in his chair, bit my head off. And I said in parentheses, that is why I have no head. Oh well. Wicked or not, Lewis Simpson, | Transcription |
| 8:02 - 8:16 | poet of careful subjectivity, poet of luminous requiring lyricism, is here tonight. (And I wave to you). | Transcription |
| 8:19 - 8:38 | Haki Madhubuti and Sonia Sanchez, they came together. The introducing is longer tonight because I have a double introduction, and one that seeks to put some things in place. Both these poets at times | Transcription |
| 8:38 - 8:40 | have been called racists. | Transcription |
| 8:41 - 8:59 | I define racism as prejudice with oppression. That is, you are permitted to detest green eyes. That's all right. That's personal. What you are not permitted to do is kill every green eyed | Transcription |
| 8:59 - 9:11 | individual you encounter. That's not all right. That's oppression. These two people are not killers. | Transcription |
| 9:11 - 9:28 | They are lovers of humanity: of what is human. They are interpreters and protectors of Blackness. They are subscribers to what is beautiful in the world. They will offer you representative Black | Transcription |
| 9:28 - 9:38 | poetry. My saying that does not assault our mutual understanding that there are respectable Black uniquities. | Transcription |
| 9:39 - 9:57 | However, today many Black poets are flopping off in worrisome directions. Many of them do not know what to do or be. Many of them want above all things not to be Black. Black people who want above all | Transcription |
| 9:57 - 10:09 | things not to be Black are the most pitiable and comical people in the world. | Transcription |
| 10:09 - 10:29 | The poets among such fight Blackness with every punch and pout in their power. Such people are very busy imitating the new moderns: those manufacturers of chopped-up journalism, dazed and dopey. | Transcription |
| 10:30 - 10:47 | Such people have been fondled and adopted by non-spunky white poets and critics who of course have no interest in preserving and in firming the bolts, the binders of Blackness. They would like | Transcription |
| 10:47 - 10:50 | Blackness to disappear altogether. | Transcription |
| 10:52 - 11:07 | Insert: "Oh, dear!" I know history may repeat itself. Do you know -- well you'll be able to tell just when this was written, and I told you in 1985. | Transcription |
| 11:08 - 11:30 | Do you know that precious past election story about Jesse Jackson? He was crossing a large body of water in a small boat with the Pope. It was windy. Suddenly the Pope's little cap flew off his head. | Transcription |
| 11:32 - 11:51 | Then Jesse Jackson stepped out of the boat, walked across the water -- I can tell some of you know this story -- retrieved the cap, walked back, clapped the cap on the Pope's head. | Transcription |
| 11:52 - 12:17 | Next morning, the newspaper streamers proclaimed: Jesse Jackson can't swim. Well ultimately, in all my non-grandeur, I may see captions announcing "When Brooks calls all white critics non-spunky". | Transcription |
| 12:20 - 12:40 | However, Sonia Sanchez is an explorer. I have always thought of her as one of that quintet of Black people: herself, Mari Evans, Don L. Lee, who became Haki, Etheridge Knight, and Nikki Giovanni who | Transcription |
| 12:40 - 12:41 | is here in this audience. | Transcription |
| 12:43 - 13:06 | Who -- and she's going to read next -- who admired the impudent spirit of Baraka, and who themselves began, in '66 and '67, to turn Black poetry around. I do not mean that these people suddenly | Transcription |
| 13:06 - 13:15 | spurted up in those years. They were all writing voluminously when I met them, and they were publishing too. | Transcription |
| 13:15 - 13:34 | Dudley Randall, poet and founder of Broadside Press, courageously published, platformed them all. In the late '60s, the quintet tried to do something fresh: defining Black poetry as poetry written by | Transcription |
| 13:34 - 13:40 | blacks, about blacks, to blacks. I am not accountable for any changes. | Transcription |
| 13:42 - 14:13 | In the late '60s that word "to" has been wickedly translated often into "for". Any poetry... is for any readers or listeners willing to investigate it. I believe all factions should be willing to | Transcription |
| 14:13 - 14:15 | investigate Black poetry. | Transcription |
| 14:15 - 14:38 | Black people, I think will be around forever. Anyone is likely to meet them suddenly. Border, boardroom, boulevard, bistro, back-alley, bar. And it behooveth the anyone to know what makes the brie | Transcription |
| 14:38 - 14:44 | tick. | Transcription |
| 14:44 - 15:02 | Sonia and Haki have remained loyal to their early recreated essence. They like the word "Consistent". Sonia can be mischievous. She called me up a while ago -- remember this was in '85 -- and said, | Transcription |
| 15:02 - 15:10 | Gwen, I want your permission to use the form you used in the Anniad. In Annie Allen. | Transcription |
| 15:10 - 15:28 | I told her, in no way does Sonia Sanchez need my permission to do anything she wants to do. But Sonia, that is not my form. It's European. And that was mischievous because in those days, anything | Transcription |
| 15:28 - 15:36 | European was absolutely anathema. | Transcription |
| 15:36 - 15:55 | The language of Sonia Sanchez is --skipped something. Even poets, these two are least likely to flop back into the '40s. The language of Sonia Sanchez is her own best introduction. Of course, one of | Transcription |
| 15:55 - 16:08 | her serious and inclusive avowals is this: If you're going out to say something, your house must be in order, because there is so much disorder outside. | Transcription |
| 16:08 - 16:26 | You will experience in her product lyricism and steel. You will be aware of Sonia Sanchez as committed poet, energized woman, necessary black. Incidentally, the prize that I mentioned has already been | Transcription |
| 16:26 - 16:32 | given to both Mari Evans and Sonia in a preceding year. | Transcription |
| 16:32 - 16:56 | About Haki, pioneer. Haki respects Sonia and she respects him, as artist and as family. Those who love and those who loathe Haki agree that he has remained actively loyal to the richness of his faith | Transcription |
| 16:56 - 16:59 | in and love for Black people. | Transcription |
| 16:60 - 17:18 | He spanks them now and then, but only as a benevolent father would spank them aching in his awareness of how much there is to hurt them in themselves and outside themselves. Aching in his wish that | Transcription |
| 17:18 - 17:40 | they maintain integrity, and a decent family loyalty. He has influenced thousands of poets: Black poets, Hispanic poets, and strangely, you may feel, Caucasian poets, who sensed a vibrance, a vigor in | Transcription |
| 17:40 - 17:45 | his dealings with language which they came to admire. | Transcription |
| 17:45 - 18:03 | Haki has said, "What writers write about tells to what extent they are involved with the real world. Writers should be questioners of the world and doers within the world. Question everything, and | Transcription |
| 18:03 - 18:23 | don't be satisfied with the quick surface answers. Bad writing, containing the most revolutionary idea, is first and last bad writing. The ability to develop a style that is clear, original, and | Transcription |
| 18:23 - 18:29 | communicative is what separates writers from non-writers", end quote. | Transcription |
| 18:30 - 18:52 | Haki had, 10 years ago, a famous list of Black clichés he wanted to see in Black poetry not again. I think he would endorse that list today. Warrior, ebony, whitey, Queen of the Nile, right on -- you | Transcription |
| 18:52 - 19:10 | know, I never hear that anymore -- African warrior, pig, pride, soul, universe, Cosmas, nigger, genocide, vibrations, Black is Beautiful, revolution, respect, change. | Transcription |
| 19:10 - 19:35 | And then I had such fun in ending that, "Here is Haki Madhubuti, pssst... African Warrior". Well okay. those are people, insufficiently sung. Who should be sung. And I leave the audience to do | Transcription |
| 19:35 - 19:36 | something about that. | Transcription |
| 19:37 - 19:47 | Now I'm going to read you some poems, but before I do that, I want to ask Joanne how much time I have, because I'm sure we're out of kilter here. | Transcription |
| 19:50 - 19:50 | You're fine. | Transcription |
| 19:50 - 19:52 | Tell me how many minutes I have. | Transcription |
| 19:52 - 19:53 | Fifteen. | Transcription |
| 19:53 - 19:55 | I don't think I'm gonna have that, it'll spill. | Transcription |
| 19:55 - 19:55 | Alright. Alright. | Transcription |
| 19:56 - 19:59 | Fifteen? 15 minutes? | Transcription |
| 19:59 - 19:59 | Yes. | Transcription |
| 19:59 - 19:60 | Okay! | Transcription |
| 20:03 - 20:04 | As long as you want! | Transcription |
| 20:04 - 20:14 | Well no, you've got another program. You've got some more poets to listen to. But thank you. I'm going to start with a... | Transcription |
| 20:17 - 20:17 | I can [inaudible]. | Transcription |
| 20:17 - 20:18 | I'm sorry? | Transcription |
| 20:28 - 20:30 | We'll give up our time for you, Gwen. Go ahead! | Transcription |
| 20:30 - 20:41 | Well I won't go much -- but yeah, that if any. Thank you though. I'm going to begin by reading a few poems to you, from Children Coming Home. That's my latest book. Came out | Transcription |
| 20:41 - 20:60 | in '91. And it contains -- incidentally, I promised several audiences that I was going to bring out Collected Poems sometime in 1995. But I'm not. | Transcription |
| 20:60 - 21:16 | I'm going to wait until I'm 80 to bring out a Collected Poems, hoping I shall have written some masterpieces within those years. But I'm going to bring out Report from Part Two, which | Transcription |
| 21:16 - 21:37 | will contain reports from part two, and also poetry and some essays. And, what else, and it's guaranteed -- I am guaranteeing myself that it will come out on August 15th. Because August 15th will be | Transcription |
| 21:37 - 21:44 | the 50th anniversary of my first publication. A Street in Bronzeville came out in '45. | Transcription |
| 21:44 - 22:07 | Well that sounds good, but you know, that's no compliment to me. I mean, whether you like it or not, whether you do anything or not, time passes. And one of these days little Rita is going to be | Transcription |
| 22:07 - 22:21 | stumbling up these stairs -- having hoped that when she came into the auditorium she would find stairs with banisters. | Transcription |
| 22:24 - 22:43 | Well I was going to tell you these are intuitions, meditations, passions, whimsies, terrors, excited pride, affirmations, rejections, and warm love. Children of the inner city. I hate that phrase. I | Transcription |
| 22:43 - 22:47 | hope you do too. It sounds so demoting: "the inner city". | Transcription |
| 22:48 - 23:05 | Not all of these kids come home to cookies and cocoa, some come to crack cocaine. The first poem is called the -- I'm not gonna read them all, and not a one leaves its page you'll be happy to know. | Transcription |
| 23:06 - 23:21 | The first one is called the Coora flower, C-o-o-r-a, and it introduces to you Tinsel Marie, who is a hip little sister. No stranger to irony. | Transcription |
| 23:21 - 23:45 | "Today I learned the coora flower/ grows high in the mountains of Itty-go-luba Bésa./ Province Meechee./ Pop. 39.// Now I am coming home./ This, at least, is Real, and what I know.// It was | Transcription |
| 23:45 - 24:05 | restful, learning nothing necessary./ School is tiny vacation. At least you can sleep./ At least you can think of love or feeling your boyfriend against you/ (which is not free from grief.)//" | Transcription |
| 24:05 - 24:29 | "But now it's Real Business./ I am Coming Home.// My mother will be screaming in an almost dirty dress./ The crack is Gone. So a Man will be in the house.// I must watch myself./ I must not dare to | Transcription |
| 24:29 - 24:31 | sleep." | Transcription |
| 24:31 - 24:55 | Richardine inhabits this poem: "White girls are peculiar people./ They cannot keep their hands out of their hair./ Also/ they are always shaking it away from their eyes/ When it is not in their eyes./ | Transcription |
| 24:57 - 25:02 | Sometimes when it is braided they forget --/" | Transcription |
| 25:02 - 25:26 | "And shake and shake/ and smooth what is nothing/ away from their shameless eyes.// I laugh.// My hair is short./ It is close to my head./ It is almost a crown of dots./ My head is clean and free./ I | Transcription |
| 25:26 - 25:44 | do not shake my head to make/ my brains like a crazy dust." | Transcription |
| 25:44 - 26:06 | Religion features Ulysses. This is an interesting little family. "At home, we pray every morning, we/ get down on our knees in a circle,/ holding hands, holding Love,/ And we sing Hallelujah.// | Transcription |
| 26:07 - 26:23 | Then we go into the World.// Daddy speeds to break bread with his Girl Friend./ Mommy's a Boss. and a lesbian./ (She too has a nice Girl Friend.)//" | Transcription |
| 26:23 - 26:45 | "My brothers and sisters and I come to school./ We bring knives pistols bottles, little boxes, and cans.// We talk to the man who's cool at the playground gate./ Nobody Sees us, nobody stops our | Transcription |
| 26:45 - 27:09 | sin.// Our teachers feed us geography./ We spit it out in a hurry.// Now we are coming home.// At home we pray every evening, we/ get down on our knees in a circle,/ holding hands, holding Love./ And | Transcription |
| 27:10 - 27:47 | we sing Hallelujiah." | Transcription |
| 27:23 - 27:43 | Would you people get tired of clapping forever? You don't have to. Merle, M-e-r-l-e, inhabits a poem called Uncle Seagram. Many of you know that there are at least many Black families, I don't | Transcription |
| 27:43 - 27:58 | know about others, who name their children after whiskies. And you've met Calvert and you've met Johnnie Walker. And this man's mother named him Seagram. | Transcription |
| 27:55 - 28:19 | "My uncle likes me too much.// I am five and a half years old, and in kindergarten./ In kindergarten everything is clean.// My uncle is six feet tall with seven bumps on his chin./ My uncle is six | Transcription |
| 28:19 - 28:42 | feet tall and he stumbles./ Stumbles because of his Wonderful Medicine/ packed in his pocket at all times.// Family is ma and pa and my uncle,/ three brothers, three sisters, and me.// Every night in | Transcription |
| 28:42 - 28:52 | my house we play checkers and dominoes./ My uncle sits close./ There aren't any shoes or socks on his feet./" | Transcription |
| 28:53 - 29:16 | "Under the table, a big toe tickles my ankle./ Under the oil cloth his thin knee beats into mine./ And mashes. And mashes.// When we look at TV/ my uncle picks me to sit on his lap./ As I sit, | Transcription |
| 29:16 - 29:30 | he gets hard in the middle./ I squirm, but he keeps me, and kisses my ear.// I am not even a girl.//" | Transcription |
| 29:31 - 29:53 | "Once, when I went to the bathroom,/ my uncle noticed, came in, shut the door,/ put his long white tongue in my ear,/ and whispered 'We're Best Friends and Family,/ and we know how to keep Secrets.'/ | Transcription |
| 29:54 - 30:02 | My uncle likes me too much. I am worried./ I do not like my uncle anymore." | Transcription |
| 30:04 - 30:30 | Those of you... If there are any white mothers in here of Black children you know this poem does not refer to you. The poem featuring Fleur, F-l-e-u-r. And it's called: Our White Mother Says We Are | Transcription |
| 30:30 - 30:53 | Black But Not Very. "My brother and I are Nice People./ We are Black, but we have creamy skin./ We have hair that is naturally curly./ We wear jackets and shoes that cost lots of money./ Our lunch | Transcription |
| 30:53 - 30:56 | box was hammered in Holland./" | Transcription |
| 30:56 - 31:15 | "We live in the biggest house on our street/ and will move Very Soon to a Special Neighborhood./ But even in this house we have shelves and shelves,/ we have cases and cases of books with fine | Transcription |
| 31:15 - 31:27 | bindings./ And sometimes we even read them. Our father/ speaks six languages, our mother speaks three./" | Transcription |
| 31:28 - 31:47 | "Each of us takes at least two showers a day.// We simply cannot abide smelly children/ or children with dull hurt eyes.// My brother and I will grow up to be/ doctors or lawyers or Supreme Court | Transcription |
| 31:47 - 31:56 | Justices/ or perfume distributors or Wall Street wizards./ Or the ones who discover the answer-to-cancer.//" | Transcription |
| 31:56 - 32:16 | "My brother and I do not have many friends, it is true.// But at Home we'll wait for High Tea./ Little scones with cinnamon butter,/ salmon croquettes with flakes of green pepper,/ little cucumber | Transcription |
| 32:17 - 32:32 | sandwiches, cashews,/ sugar in cubes with our English Breakfast Tea./ Candied ginger./ And Orange juice if we want it." | Transcription |
| 32:32 - 32:55 | Puzzlement. Diego. Diego has been in school, and it's Black pride day, and little Black children are running all around hollering: I'm Black and I'm proud! "I, partly Nigerian./ I, partly | Transcription |
| 32:58 - 33:24 | Puerto Rican.// I have a Nigerian father,/ A Puerto Rican mother./ I am packed in a skin that is tan.// I, too, have a heart on fire./ I too want to be Proud./ I, too, want to be Something and Proud./ | Transcription |
| 33:25 - 33:33 | I want to shout "I'M A TAN!" | Transcription |
| 33:37 - 33:50 | Well, the last selection from this book is Kojo's poem. And I want you to know I meet lots and lots of Kojos all over the country and I am so proud to be able to report that to you. This poem is | Transcription |
| 33:50 - 34:11 | called I am a Black. "According to my Teachers,/ I am now an African-American.// They call me out of my name.// BLACK is an open umbrella./ I am Black and A Black forever.//" | Transcription |
| 34:11 - 34:32 | "I am one of The Blacks.// We are Here, we are There./ We occur in Brazil, in Nigeria, Ghana,/ In Botswana, Tanzania, in Kenya,/ In Russia, Australia, in Haiti. Soweto,/ In Grenada, in Cuba, in | Transcription |
| 34:32 - 34:46 | Panama, Libya,/ in England and Italy, France.// We are graces in any places./ I am Black and A Black/ forever.//" | Transcription |
| 34:47 - 35:07 | "I am other than Hyphenation.// I say, proudly, MY PEOPLE!/ I say, proudly, OUR PEOPLE!// Our People do not disdain to eat yams or melons or grits/ Or to put peanut butter in stew.//" | Transcription |
| 35:07 - 35:22 | -- And I'd like to interrupt myself here and say, as I've said many times, if you haven't tried that, try it, because it's absolutely delicious -- "I am Kojo. In West Africa Kojo/ Means Unconquerable. | Transcription |
| 35:23 - 35:43 | My parents/ named me the seventh day from my birth/ in Black spirit, Black faith, Black communion./ I am Kojo. I am A Black./ And I Capitalize my name.// Do not call me out of my name." | Transcription |
| 35:44 - 35:58 | I know I'm not gonna make any converts. And I know that African American sounds soft and sweet, and inoffensive: African American, as opposed to Black! | Transcription |
| 36:11 - 36:33 | Well at least you're tolerating me. I'm going to read to you a poem that begins my book Winnie and of course Winnie is Winnie Mandela. The opening poem: "Winnie Mandela, she/ the non-fiction | Transcription |
| 36:33 - 36:52 | statement, the flight into resolving/ fiction,/ vivid over the landscape, a sumptuous sun/ for our warming, ointment at the gap of our wounding,/ sometimes/ would like to be a little girl again.// | Transcription |
| 36:53 - 36:58 | Skipping down a country road, singing.//" | Transcription |
| 36:58 - 37:15 | "Or a young woman, flirting,/ No cares beyond curl-braids and paint/ and effecting no change, no swerve, no jangle.// But Winnie Mandela, she,/ the She of our vision, the Code,/ the articulate | Transcription |
| 37:15 - 37:25 | rehearsal, the founding mother, shall/ direct our choir of makers and wide music.// | Transcription |
| 37:25 - 37:42 | "Think of plants and beautiful weeds in the Wilderness./ They can't do a thing about it (they are told)/ when trash is dumped at their roots./ Have no doubt they're indignant and daunted./ It is not | Transcription |
| 37:42 - 38:01 | what they wanted.// Winnie Mandela, she/ is there to be vivid: there/ to assemble, to conduct the old magic,/ the frightened beauty, that trapped wild loveliness, the/ crippled reach,/ interrupted | Transcription |
| 38:01 - 38:04 | order, the stalled clarity.//" | Transcription |
| 38:05 - 38:26 | "Listen, my Sisters, Brothers, all ye/ that dance on the brink of Blackness,/ never falling in:// Your vision your Code your Winnie is woman grown.// I Nelson the Mandela tell you so." [[00:38:24 | 00:38:25 | Laughter] | Transcription |
| 38:27 - 38:45 | I meant to tell you when I started reading it, that there was a surprise at the end. This was Nelson talking all the time, and isn't that just like a man to say "I, Nelson, the Mandela, tell you so." | Transcription |
| 38:45 - 39:02 | Of course that was written before he was released from prison. I have here Winnie considering herself poet. And those of you who have seen her documentaries or seen her interviewed on TV, I think will | Transcription |
| 39:02 - 39:07 | agree that this woman was definitely an essential poet. | Transcription |
| 39:08 - 39:26 | So I make her say, "Yet I know/ that I am Poet!/ I pass you my Poem.// A poem doesn't do everything for you./ You are supposed to go on with your thinking./ You are supposed to enrich/ the | Transcription |
| 39:26 - 39:39 | other person's poem with your extensions,/ your uniquely personal understandings,/ thus making the poem serve you.//" | Transcription |
| 39:39 - 39:58 | "I pass you my Poem! — to tell you/ we are all vulnerable —/ the midget, the Mighty,/ the richest, the poor./ Men, women, children, and trees./ I am vulnerable./ Hector Peterson was vulnerable.// My | Transcription |
| 39:58 - 40:08 | poem is life, and not finished./ It shall never be finished./ My Poem is life, and can grow.//" | Transcription |
| 40:09 - 40:26 | "Wherever life can grow, it will./ It will sprout out,/ and do the best it can./ I give you what I have./ You don't get all your questions answered in this world./ How many answers shall be found in | Transcription |
| 40:26 - 40:43 | the developing world of my Poem?/ I don't know. Nevertheless, I put my Poem,/ which is my life, into your hands, where it will do the best it can.//" | Transcription |
| 40:44 - 41:04 | "I am not a tight-faced Poet.// I am tired of little tight-faced poets sitting down to/ shape perfect unimportant pieces./ Poems that cough lightly — catch back a sneeze./ This is the time for Big | Transcription |
| 41:04 - 41:19 | Poems,/ roaring up out of sleaze,/ poems from ice, from vomit, and from tainted blood./ This is the time for a stiff or viscous poems./ Big, and Big" | Transcription |
| 41:20 - 41:28 | But of course you know, a little Haiku -- three lines, five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables -- can be a big poem. | Transcription |
| 41:28 - 41:54 | Thank you. I'm gonna try to get this out to you. And Old Black Woman, Homeless and Indistinct. Now I know that if you haven't seen any homeless in the raw, you have certainly seen them on TV. | Transcription |
| 41:54 - 42:13 | Sometimes I go to little towns, and I don't see any homeless at all. There's no problem seeing them in New York, and Chicago, and Philadelphia. As soon as you hit the town, you see them. But when I go | Transcription |
| 42:13 - 42:24 | to these scrubbed little towns, I say where are your homeless? Where do you keep them? Because I know they're there. | Transcription |
| 42:24 - 42:45 | "Your every day is a pilgrimage, a blue hubbub, your days are collected bacchanals of fear and self troubling. And your nights, your nights when you put you down an alley or cardboard or viaduct. Your | Transcription |
| 42:45 - 42:50 | lovers are rats, finding your secret places." | Transcription |
| 42:50 - 43:11 | "When you rise at another morning, you hit the street, your incessant enemy. See? Here you are in the so-busy world. You walk, you walk you pass the people, no, the people pass you. Here's a rich girl | Transcription |
| 43:11 - 43:24 | marching briskly to her charms. She is suede and scarf and belting and perfume. She sees you not she sees you very well." | Transcription |
| 43:24 - 43:44 | "At five in the afternoon Miss Rich-girl will go home to brooms and vacuum cleaners and carpeting, two cats, two marble-top tables, two telephones. Shiny green peppers, flowers in impudent vases, | Transcription |
| 43:45 - 43:58 | visitors. Before all that there's luncheon to be known. Lasagna, lobster salad, sandwiches. All day there's coffee to be loved." | Transcription |
| 43:58 - 44:20 | "There are luxuries of minor dissatisfaction. Luxuries of plan. That's her story. You're going to vanish. Not necessarily nicely. Fairly soon. Although essentially dignity itself, a death is not | Transcription |
| 44:20 - 44:25 | necessarily tidy, modest, or discreet." | Transcription |
| 44:26 - 44:49 | "When they find you, your legs may not be tidy, nor aligned. Your mouth may be all crooked or destroyed. Black old woman, homeless, indistinct. Your last and least adventure is review. Folks used to | Transcription |
| 44:49 - 45:08 | celebrate your birthday. Folks used to say she's such a pretty little thing. Folks used to say she draws such handsome horses, cows, and houses. Folks used to say that child is going far." | Transcription |
| 45:08 - 45:33 | We Real Cool: The Pool Players. Seven at the Golden Shovel. "We real cool. We/ Left school. We// Lurk late. We/ Strike straight. We// Sing sin. We/ Thin gin. We// Jazz June. We/ Die soon." I'll | Transcription |
| 45:33 - 45:37 | meet you somewhere down the road and I'll say something about that. | Transcription |
| 45:37 - 46:06 | Thank you. I think I'm gonna stop. Thank you. Thank you, thank you very much. Thank you. | Transcription |
| 46:33 - 46:50 | Gwendolyn Brooks has not only been a fixture over the last 50 years in our literature. She represents strong tradition and, well certainly for men like myself, an example. | Transcription |
| 46:54 - 47:06 | In Chicago State about four years ago we established the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing. And in that center is the chair, the Gwendolyn Brooks Chair | Transcription |
| 47:06 - 47:22 | for Black Literature and Creative Writing. And Miss Brooks holds the chair. And each year, we have a major conference at Chicago State, which will take place this year, October 21st and 22nd, which is | Transcription |
| 47:22 - 47:30 | "The Influence of African Black Literature and Culture on the Diaspora". And that is the conference in which Joanne Gabbin will receive her prize. | Transcription |
| 47:34 - 47:48 | Gwen has been so close to me and my work, that as I was sitting listening to her this afternoon, I realized I've written about six poems and most certainly in the last five books there has been a poem | Transcription |
| 47:48 - 47:49 | about Gwendolyn Brooks. | Transcription |
| 47:50 - 48:04 | In the latest book, which will be published, actually, October the 10th -- it's been out now for a couple of months, is Claiming Earth: Race, Rage, Rape, Redemption: Blacks Seeking a Culture of | Transcription |
| 48:04 - 48:09 | Enlightened Empowerment was held up until I finished this piece on Gwendolyn Brooks. | Transcription |
| 48:11 - 48:32 | And the title of the piece is simply: "Gwendolyn Brooks: Distinctive and Proud at 77". "how do we greet significant people among us,/ what is the area code that glues them to us,/ who likes the sun | Transcription |
| 48:32 - 48:49 | burning in their hearts,/ where stands their truth in these days of MTV/ and ethnic cleansing,/ what language is the language of Blacks?// she has a map in her." | Transcription |
| 48:50 - 49:09 | "she always returns home. we are not/ open prairie, we are rural concrete written out of history. she/ reminds us of what we can become, not political correctness/ or social commentators and not | Transcription |
| 49:09 - 49:10 | excuse makers for Big people./" | Transcription |
| 49:12 - 49:29 | "always a credit-giver for ideas originated in the quiet of her/ many contemplations. a big thinker is she. sleeps with paper/ and dictionary by her bed, sleeps with children in her head./ her first | Transcription |
| 49:29 - 49:44 | and second drafts are pen on paper. her husband/ thinks he underestimates her. she thinks we all have possibili-/ ties. nothing is simplified or simply given." | Transcription |
| 49:46 - 50:03 | "she wears her love/ in her language. if you do not listen, you will miss her secrets./ we do not occupy the margins of her heart, we are the blood,/ soul, Black richness, spirit, and water-source | Transcription |
| 50:03 - 50:05 | pumping the/ music she speaks." | Transcription |
| 50:06 - 50:25 | "uncluttered by people-worship, she lives/ always on the edge of significant discovery. her instruction is/ 'rise to the occasion,' her religion is 'kindness,' her work/ is sharing and making words | Transcription |
| 50:25 - 50:31 | matter. She gives to the people/ everybody takes from./" | Transcription |
| 50:32 - 50:55 | "she is grounded-seeker, cultured-boned./ she is Black sunset and at 77 she is no amateur./ rooted willingly and firmly in dark soil, she is last of the great/ oaks./ name her poet./ as it does us, | Transcription |
| 50:56 - 50:59 | her language needs to blanket the Earth." | Transcription |
| 51:28 - 51:40 | Haki, thank you, brother, for that wonderful tribute to Gwen. To our mother Gwen. And I know you aren't going to be with us tonight. Are you leaving? | Transcription |
| 51:41 - 51:42 | I'm going to leave shortly. | Transcription |
| 51:42 - 51:56 | Shortly, okay. Well, you won't be present but this tribute will will be remembered tonight when we have a special tribute to Gwen and other poets that we are honoring tonight at the | Transcription |
| 51:56 - 51:60 | banquet, and I hope that many of you will be there. | Transcription |
| 52:01 - 52:30 | In the spirit of your admonishment, Gwen, that we do something about honoring our own and encouraging our own, it occurred to me that I had $160 that I collected from selling these and from selling a | Transcription |
| 52:30 - 52:34 | few posters that I had left over. | Transcription |
| 52:34 - 52:56 | So, this is the beginning of it Gwen. And I want to use this $160 tomorrow to encourage our young poets in the form of prize, of poetry prizes that we will have in a poetry slam that will take place | Transcription |
| 52:56 - 53:03 | at 12:30. And this will be the Gwendolyn Brooks poetry slam. | Transcription |
| 53:04 - 53:19 | And I know that many people are going off to have lunch at that hour and have lunch on your own and that's great. But if any of you want to join us in Grafton-Stovall at 12:30 for this poetry slam, | Transcription |
| 53:19 - 53:32 | it'll give our young poets and our young critics and young scholars an opportunity to talk to one another and also an opportunity to read. We have not had an opportunity for them to read! I think | Transcription |
| 53:32 - 53:43 | that's a good idea. | Transcription |
| 53:44 - 53:58 | I'll tell you, too -- well no, I won't tell you that. I'm glad I collected this money, I thought about -- aren't these beautiful? I thought about just giving these away. And my husband said, you know, | Transcription |
| 53:59 - 54:02 | "You paid for these. Why don't you sell a few to make some money?" | Transcription |
| 54:02 - 54:19 | And that man is a voice always of reason. And I wouldnt've had this money! I don't know whether he's in here, and Gwen gave him a wonderful tribute. Alexander, are you here? He is not here. But I will | Transcription |
| 54:19 - 54:32 | give him a tribute tonight. Because let me tell you -- Oh! | Transcription |
| 54:32 - 55:02 | You folks in here are too aware of double entendre! Honestly! It'll be alright. We're going to take a 10 minute break, and then we're going to go immediately into the next poetry reading. | Transcription |
| 0:01 - 0:23 | Gwendolyn Brooks | Speaker |
| 19:50 - 19:50 | Joanne V. Gabbin | Speaker |
| 19:50 - 19:52 | Gwendolyn Brooks | Speaker |
| 19:52 - 19:53 | Joanne V. Gabbin | Speaker |
| 19:53 - 19:55 | Gwendolyn Brooks | Speaker |
| 19:55 - 19:55 | Joanne V. Gabbin | Speaker |
| 19:56 - 19:59 | Gwendolyn Brooks | Speaker |
| 19:59 - 19:59 | Joanne V. Gabbin | Speaker |
| 19:59 - 19:60 | Gwendolyn Brooks | Speaker |
| 20:03 - 20:04 | Speaker Unknown | Speaker |
| 20:04 - 20:14 | Gwendolyn Brooks | Speaker |
| 20:17 - 20:17 | Joanne V. Gabbin | Speaker |
| 20:17 - 20:18 | Gwendolyn Brooks | Speaker |
| 20:28 - 20:30 | Speaker Unknown | Speaker |
| 20:30 - 20:41 | Gwendolyn Brooks | Speaker |
| 46:33 - 46:50 | Unknown Speaker | Speaker |
| 46:54 - 47:06 | Haki R. Madhubuti | Speaker |
| 51:28 - 51:40 | Joanne V. Gabbin | Speaker |
| 51:41 - 51:42 | Haki R. Madhubuti | Speaker |
| 51:42 - 51:56 | Joanne V. Gabbin | Speaker |