In Montgomery: And Other Poems (English and English Edition) [Hardcover]

Gwendolyn Brooks (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2003

Composed of three sections, this collection features the final poems of the late poet laureate of Illinois. The first section, "In Montgomery," is a verbal description of a visit made by the poet and a highly talented photographer for Ebony Magazine, Moneeta Sleet. This is followed by a section of poetic character sketches. The final section is based upon a well known building located in the Black ghetto of Chicago's south side.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize, Brooks (1917-2000) moved from early, formally intricate verse about American life, through a brilliantly jagged free verse attuned to the turbulence of the late 1960s, into a populist hortatory style that reached a very wide audience. Brooks prepared this new-and-selected volume shortly before her death; its titular sequence, published in Ebony in 1971, has never appeared in book form. That sequence praises Alabama's civil rights workers, incorporating their speech and giving the flavor and the micro-history of that important period as few other poets could. The selection concludes with the pivotal, and critically admired, long poem "In the Mecca" (1968), a harrowing narrative set in a Chicago housing project. The rest of the book collects poems from Brooks's later phase, many of them about or addressed to the young; the sequence "Children Coming Home" consists of short, moving verse-monologues by boys and girls from Chicago's South Side. Other poems praise named individuals, from the social reformer Jane Addams to a deceased child to Danny Glover ("Danny Glover is/ a good poem"). An ode to Winnie Mandela ("the She of our vision, the Code") appears now as Brooks's last ambitious work, and includes a deservedly proud mission statement: "We blue-print/ not merely our survival but a flowering."
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The beloved Chicago poet's many fans will welcome this posthumous collection consisting primarily of dramatic monologues in a stunning variety of voices, from those of urban children to Winnie Mandela's. Reading the title sequence resembles randomly tuning a radio dial to listen to the diverse voices of Montgomery, Alabama, a city of "leaning and lostness, glazed paralysis." Despite apathy and fear, Brooks finds hope: "there will be changes," a "dark-dapper" politician tells her, "the determined knocking / on doors that are closed." Especially moving are the children's monologues. Tinsel Marie tells of loving to learn about "nothing necessary," such as the tropical flowers she will never see in her crack-filthy home; Merle, of the uncle who "likes me too much" and of fearing the future; Al, of fighting the dealers and getting beaten for his iron spirit. Neither idealizing nor pitying them, Brooks captures the fierce purity of these children's needs and desires. Her loving witness never sounded more clearly than in these late poems. Patricia Monaghan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 147 pages
• Publisher: Third World Press (January 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0883782324
• ISBN-13: 978-0883782323
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #787,797 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Okay..., February 16, 2004

By 

Shamontiel L. Vaughn "Message from Montie" (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: In Montgomery and Other Poems (Paperback)

I wasn't feeling the long poems at all. It may be because there was a lot of name-dropping but I wasn't familiar with the names or maybe because the subject changed too much, but I usually enjoy long poems. I did enjoy the shorter poems like the one about the uncle who sits too close and the one about kids thinking school is vacation cause home is the worst place to be. She still has a knack for making simple words express deep emotion which is the reason why I love Brooks and hate Shakespeare (who tried to make the simplest task deep when it really wasn't). I respect Brooks and I love her poetry, but I just wasn't into this book. There were only about five poems that I'd enjoy reading again.