Author & Poet Gwendolyn Brooks’, “a song in the front yard” Poem

0 Posted by - November 4, 2023 - Black History, BLACK WOMEN, History, LATEST POSTS

“a song in the front yard”

I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life.
I want a peek at the back
Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed grows.
A girl gets sick of a rose.
I want to go in the back yard now
And maybe down the alley,
To where the charity children play.
I want a good time today.
They do some wonderful things.
They have some wonderful fun.
My mother sneers, but I say it’s fine
How they don’t have to go in at quarter to nine.
My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae
Will grow up to be a bad woman.
That George’ll be taken to Jail soon or late
(On account of last winter he sold our back gate).
But I say it’s fine. Honest, I do.
And I’d like to be a bad woman, too,
And wear the brave stockings of night-black lace
And strut down the streets with paint on my face.
-Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brooks was a poet, author, and teacher. Her work often dealt with the personal celebrations and struggles of ordinary people in her community.

Brooks began writing at an early age. She published her first poem in a children’s magazine at age 13. In 1936, Brooks graduated from Wilson Junior College, having already begun to write and publish her work. By 16, she had published approximately 75 poems.

She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry on May 1, 1950, for Annie Allen making her the first African American to receive the Pulitzer. rooks published her first book of poetry, A Street in Bronzeville, in 1945. The book was an instant success, leading to a Guggenheim Fellowship and other honors. Her second book, Annie Allen, appeared in 1949. Gwendolyn Brooks died of cancer on December 3, 2000, at the age of 83.

source:

https://www.biography.com/people/gwendolyn-brooks-9227599?_escaped_fragment_=

 

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