Customer Reviews

Selected Poems (Perennial Classics)

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Five stars! If I had to choose the ten greatest books of the twentieth century, Brooks' Selected Poems would have to be one of them. Her voice is entirely original - no one who came before Brooks or follows her writes quite like her. Brooks' work is distinguished by so many wonderful qualities - she may have the best ear of any living American poet. Her sense of the musicality of language rivals that of Yeats and Dylan Thomas (as in, say, "A Sunset of the City," "We Real Cool," "Big Bessie throws her son into the street, and her great long poem, "Riot."). I once heard Gwendolyn Brooks read over twenty years ago when I was in college, and I still haven't forgotten the sound of her voice, and with it the dawn of my understanding that poetry is half-music, half-language. Brooks is also capable of that kind of clarity and brilliance of imagery that you find in the best William Carlos Williams Poems. (Read, for example, "The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till" or "My Little `Bout Town Gal"). What has always been most special about her work for me, however, is the way Brooks captures nuances of feeling, multi-layers of emotion, in a few phrases, as in her very contemporary poem about abortion, "the mother," or her love poem, "A Lovely Love." The only other poet I know of who does this so well is Emily Dickinson.

This is a wonderful collection of poems, Brooks's best. I understand why Langston Hughes has received so much attention over the last several decades--his first-person commentary and description of Black life in the twentieth century is valuable and enlightening--but Brooks, at her best (i.e., in this book), is a better poet than Hughes was at his best, and I'm a little miffed that she hasn't received more credit by the general public than she has. It is just that this volume won the Pulizter Prize, and it will certainly be around for some time.

In 1984, I had the honor to spend a day with Miss Brooks, and to hear her do a reading of many of the poems in this book. I wish that all of you could have heard that reading, her work is meant to be read aloud. That's what I would advise you to do, buy this book, and when you get it, read the poems aloud. Play with the flow and the cadence of the words. Miss Brooks is a national treasure, and her words speak to us all.

Brooks is a poet whose best known poems actually conceal her greatness from readers of poetry. To know Brooks by "We Real Cool" is just like knowing Williams by the wheelbarrow poem and the plums in the fridge. This is crazy!

I'm hard pressed to think of a standard that anybody could use to judge poetry and not understand that Gwnedolyn Brooks is one of the greatest American poets ever. In her many years, she managed to be everything: imaginative, weird, gorgeous and difficult language, a populist who is also a master at dislodging language from the commonplce, hard-nosed, unafraid of unpleasantness, moving, funny at times, a master of tone, personal and social, a master of form, and a master of free verse. She is a category buster, and frankly, next to her work, its variousness and there-ness, even post-WW2 poets who are amazing are a little less impressive, a bit goofier and egoistic.

She is also an example of a poet who really changes throughout her life & who is great at every stage of it.

It's a shame some people sit in their Wall Street Towers and, not having any apparent experience with the real world, judge harshly those who not only live in it, but interpret it into literary masterpieces. Those who find solace in maligning Gwendolyn Brook's poetry should take a much closer second look. Her poetry transcends all barriers. Her subjects are the embodiment of all of us, poor or rich. Ms. Brooks' poetry shoots straight to the soul, exposing it; and, the soul knows not color, race, creed, or ethnicity. Ms. Brooks is a national treasure, our collective national conscience. Her poetry is a reflection of today's society - good or bad, clean or dirty. Isn't it a shock to look into the mirror after all the facades are melted away and discover that none of us are really "all of that?"

This is a wonderful book for both children and adults. If you like poems, then you should definetly read this book.

Various editions of "Selected Poems" by the late Gwendolyn Brooks are floating around, most of which only have differences in layout or binding. All have the core poems that defined Brooks as one of America's poets with a social conscience.

In the spirit of Carl Sandburg and Langston Hughes, and occasionally, Robert Frost, her poetry meets the reader head-on. However, to Brooks' credit, and what makes her a great poet, is she sees the big picture, just her greatly skilled colleagues listed above.

Brooks was black. She neither hid it, nor would be ashamed that I said so. Many of her poems revolved around the issues impacting African Americans, both the responsibility they have, as well as an acknowledgment of the difficulties they endure because of racism and cultural differences.

Her poems will survive (and are worth reading today) because they were not shackled to the political milieu of the day. What she wrote in the 1940s, when racism was bolder and more detrimental than today, matters.

She was current, yet eternal. Even though "The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till" refers to a young man murdered decades ago, the reader without that context will still appreciates its common-spoken depth (her indents are diminished in my copy below because of the software to post this):

after the murder,
after the burial

Emmett's mother is a pretty-faced thing;
the tint of pulled taffy.
She sits in a red room,
drinking black coffee.
She kisses her killed boy.
And she is sorry.
Chaos in windy grays
through a red prairie.

Award-winning, and well-celebrated toward the end of her life, Brooks complete collection of poems is a valuable lesson in compassion, speaking with strong poetic voice, and honesty. For the reader looking for an introduction to Brooks' poetry without having to work through the vast complete works would do well to start here.

I fully recommend "Selected Poems" by Gwendolyn Brooks.

Anthony Trendl
editor, HungarianBookstore.com

Gwendolyn Brooks is one of the masters of poetry. she is probably the greatest living poet, one of the best modern poets, and one of the better poets of all time. for anyone who loves poetry, their library shouldn't be without this volume.

I like Gwendolyn Brooks. But I like poetry that tells a story more and this book didn't have much of it. My favorite poem was "Bronzeville Woman in a Red Hat" because it was more my style of poetry, a hidden story being revealed by every line. I just wasn't feeling the poetry in this book. It seemed a little dry. I love "We Real Cool" and classics like that, but I don't feel this book showcased Brooks' ability to tell a story and recite a poem at the same time.

Ms. Brooks epitomizes what is wrong with modern poetry. Poems like "We Real Cool" show an attempt at profundity but fall so far from the mark as to be laughable. The sad fact, however, is that, of Brooks' poems, "We Real Cool" seems to be the best example of rhythm and meter I have seen.

If you want to buy a book of poetry, save your money and buy something meaningful -- perhaps a book of poetry by Yeats or a collection of Shakespeare sonnets.