The Sonnet-Ballad, AndWe Real Cool, By Gwendolyn Brooks

There, she started to write at the age of seven and published her first poem at 13. After she completed school, Gwendolyn Brooks found herself working for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and continued to write about the struggles of African Americans in her community. During Gwendolyn Brooks’s career she expanded the topic of her writings. Between 1940-1960’s, her writings were about the oppression of blacks and women of all colors in her community, and she poetically criticized the shocking prejudice that African Americans had for one another. However, during 1960’s she developed a new attitude, due to her growing political awareness. She began to expand her poetry from the day-to-day life of the African Americans in her community, to writing about the wider world and the racial struggles of African American people everywhere. She then brought back all of her accomplishments to her community by reading her poems to children at various venues. By the end of her life, she had inspired thousands of young

     Gwendolyn Brooks is the female poet who has been most responsive to changes in the black community, particularly in the community’s vision of itself. The first African American to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize; she was considered one of America’s most distinguished poets well before the age of fifty. Known for her technical artistry, she has succeeded in forms as disparate as Italian terza rima and the blues. She has been praised for her wisdom and insight into the African Experience in America. Her works reflect both the paradises and the hells of the black people of the world. Her writing is objective, but her characters speak for themselves. Although the

When Langston Hughes was writing his poems, he wanted the reader to get a dive into the life of the black Americans during the Harlem Renaissance. In most of his work, Langston writes about the truth and their actual culture such as, both, their love for music and suffering during this time. In Blues

“We Real Cool," by Gwendolyn Brooks is a fervent short poem that tells a story of teenage rebellion. This poem is a formal verse ballad which uses simple sentences that create a steady meter giving the poem a catchy jazz like quality. Although the poem is short, it packs a powerful message about youth. Gwendolyn Brooks centered her works predominately around the African American consciousness. During the 1960’s when the poem was written, many teens especially young African-American men felt misunderstood and like the world was set up for them to fail. On the surface, it appears this poem is a mere description of young adults that are misjudged. The deeper message of this poem addresses the dangers of peer pressure, and its detrimental effects to self-identity because of the disconnect between society and youth of that time.

     The voice of one person can send a profound sound into the hearts of people to help liberate one’s mind. That profound sound is seen through poetry. The creative structure and style of poetry creates a different form of writing that can either have rhythm, alliteration or have a direct message. In the poem “I Too Sing America”, by Langston Hughes had a significant message in that he desired to voice his expression on the issue of black oppression in America. Langston basic themes focused on the American Dream and the possibilities of hope and advancement were constantly present in his poetry. The tension between the unrealized dream and the realities of the black experience in

We have produced marvelous pieces of art, dynamic architecture, discovered intelligent theories and ideas, even created significant clothing, jewelry and a multitude of other things. We possess a vast amount of talent that ranges from singers, dancers, writers, entertainers, musicians, poets, actors and actresses. One of my favorite pastimes is poetry. But in order to understand my passion for poetry we must first understand the origins of poetry, and learn about some of the notable African American poets of the past who have paved the way. There are many great African American artists that were very talented poets. Artists such as Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Gwendolyn Bennett are just a few African Americans who had a momentous influence on writing and poetry in our culture.

Poetry for centuries has been a gateway for incognito artists to display their sorrow and jubilance. As for the poet Gwendolyn Brooks, her poetry was majority sorrow; the poem “Sonnet-ballad”, written in 1949, the poem depicts a young woman's lover going off to war and his original psyche never returning home after the war. Gwendolyn Brooks later in her life became a strong activist for the African-American people during times like the Civil Rights Movement.

The works of Gwendolyn Brooks has gone through several changes throughout her career. When she first published in 1945, she was eager to be understood by strangers. In her last two poetical collections, however, she has dumped that attitude and gone ?black?. Her change then led her from a major publishing house to smaller black ones. While some critics found an angrier tone in her work, elements of protest had always been present in her writing. Her poetry moves from traditional forms including sonnets, ballads, variations of the Chaucerian and Spenserian stanzas, and the rhythm of the blues to the most unrestricted free verse. To sum up, the popular forms of English poetry appear in her work, but there is some testing as she puts together lyric, narrative, and dramatic poetic forms. In her narrative poetry, the stories are simple but usually go beyond the restrictions of place. In her dramatic poetry, the characters are often memorable because they are everyday survivors not heroes. Her characters are drawn from the underclass of the nation's black slums. Like many urban writers, Brooks has recorded the impact of city life. However, aside from most committed naturalists, she does not entirely blame the city for what happens to people. The city is simply an existing force with which people must deal with. The most dominant theme in Brooks?s work is the

The poems “ I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou are both poems that speak on the issues of the mistreatment of African Americans, and how these challenges were created simply by the color of one’s skin and overcome. While the poems “Mother To Son” and “ Dreams” by Langston Hughes refer to the hopes of African Americans for a better standard of living, and the consequences of departing from these dreams of bettering themselves. This comparison of these four poems is important because all four aim to better society for African Americans, and inform the population struggles that they maybe be able to relate, and provide them with the inspiration to keep pushing forward. These poems explain why the desire for equality was so important to African americans at this time, and what they had to go through to get it. I believe that these poems are all used as methods of expression, information, as well as rebellion against the racial in injustice that was suffered for so long.

They also tell a story and allows you to visualize the senses and story. These poems both take place in the city of Harlem. The first poem entitled “Harlem”, gives it away. The weary blues also takes place in the city.

Gwendolyn Brooks was an african american poet known for her easy but complex, thought provoking and deep connecting poems. She was briefly a writer and teacher. Her father was a janitor with dreams to be a doctor and her mother was a pianist who loved music. She grew up in chicago in the 20’s, a time of crime and discrimination of african americans. At a young age she developed a love for writing poems. She based her poems off of her everyday struggles with racism and sexism. She prestitted through all of the hatred she dealt with and and continued write poems that went into to details of the lives of struggling teens, independent men and women, and how to overcome hardships. People recognized and enjoyed her poems because unique style that include vivid and explicit diction, and imaginative symbols that represent life's ups and downs.

Gwendolyn Brooks is a famous, African American poetess who is famous for making a social commentary upon the urban society in which she lives. Clearly seen in three of her more popular poems, “the mother”, “a song in the front yard”, and “What shall I give my children? Who are poor?”, Brooks uses the struggles of impoverished motherhood to comment on the stymied lives of adult black women. This is obviously evident in her use of the tone of hopelessness, which transcends all three poems in differing forms that stem from regret in “the mother”, worry and overprotectiveness in “a song in the front yard” and frustration of lacking the necessities for children in “What shall I give my children? Who are poor”

In today’s society we face a lot of issues, but there is one issue that stands out to me most. Which these two poems address, that is injustice towards other race in America. In Langston Hughes “I Too” and “The Weary Blues” the trouble of unjust towards African Americans, weigh on the speaker’s mind. Each poem reflecting on the same issue just a little bit differently.

Race plays a big part in this poem. He speaks on Harlem and its culture and this environment but also about mutual interest with people

Langston Hughes shows many jazz influences in his poems with his vocabulary and his views toward the American culture. Langston Hughes wanted to highlight their concerns and the challenges they faced in America at that time, including racism. Hughes also wanted to highlight the unique ways that the African American experience was different from the experience of white Americans. “I too” and “ The Negro Speaks of Rivers” both show examples of Jazz influences in the poems during the harlem renaissance and how it changed how people viewed the African American society.