Quotes by Gwendolyn Brooks
Young, and so thin, and so straight. So straight! as if nothing could ever bend her....
She kisses her killed boy. And she is sorry. Chaos in windy grays through a red prairie.
Whether to dry In humming pallor or to leap and die.
Time upholds or overturns The many, tight, and small concerns.
In Little Rock the people bear Babes, and comb and part their hair And watch the want ads, put repair To roof and latch.
Think of thaumaturgic lass Looking in her looking-glass At the unembroidered brown....
Swing low swing low sweet sweet chariot. Nothing but a plain black boy.
She has taken her passive pigeon poor, She has buried him down and down....
She went in there to muse on being rid Of relative beneath the coffin lid. No one was by. She stuck her tongue out; slid.
To say yes is to die A lot or a little. The dead wear capably their wry Enameled emblems. They smell.
The intellectual damn Will nurse your half-hurt. Quickly you are well.
This morning men deliver wounds and death. They will deliver death and wounds tomorrow. And I doubt all. You. Or a violet.
Life must be aromatic. There must be scent, somehow there must be some.
I've stayed in the front yard all my life. I want a peek at the back...
... Live!/and have your blooming in the noise of the whirlwind.
God's Son went home. Among us it is whispered He cried the tears of men. Feeling, in fact, We have no need of peace.
You are the beautiful half Of a golden hurt.
A dryness is upon the house My father loved and tended.
Each body has its art, its precious prescribed Pose, that even in passion's droll contortions, waltzes,...
Each body has its art...
For I am rightful fellow of their band. My best allegiances are to the dead.
I swear to keep the dead upon my mind,/Disdain for all time to be overglad./Among spring flowers, under summer trees./By chilling autumn water...
With the narcotic milk of peace for men Who find Thy beautiful center ...
We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon.
He was born in Alabama. He was bred in Illinois. He was nothing but a Plain black boy.
