gwendolyn brooks Flashcards
what is “the rites for cousin vit” about?
death trying to take this woman away but it cannot because her spirit is so strong and lively; she was able to come close to a truly happy life
“refuses to accept that someone so alive could consent to the indignity of being buried, and so it becomes and elegy that denies death”
what is “beverly hills, chicago” about?
depicts blackness as being complex; it is about longing/jealousy of the well-off in a much nicer neighborhood than the one the narrator lives in
“even the most universal moments of our lives, like death, can be altered by money”
what was brooks’ main topic of poetry?
political consciousness (civil rights activism)
where was brooks born?
topeka, kansas
what was her father’s job?
janitor who had hoped to be a doctor
what was her mother’s job?
schoolteacher and pianist
what relation did her poems have to bitterness?
they were more about bitterness than being bitter themselves
what did she consider the “black emphasis” to be?
not against white people but FOR black people
what is “lovers of the poor” about?
wealthy people who claim to love and care for the poor, but it is really more like a hobby for them; they only love a certain kind of poor person; privilege can make you cruel and unhuman; all of their efforts are performative-they do it to impress each other, not for the people they claim to want to help
