Reflecting violence in the warpland: Gwendolyn Brooks's Riot

African American Review, Spring-Summer, 2005 by Annette Debo

The collective violence itself is covered in "The Third Sermon on the Warpland," the second part of Riot, which establishes the controlling metaphor of the phoenix: "in Egyptian mythology, a bird which lived for five hundred years and then consumed itself in fire, rising renewed from the ashes" (epigraph). Under this metaphor, African Americans were brought to the land that is now the US almost 500 years ago and are now ready for a phoenix-like birth process. The community is consumed by fire during the riots, but Brooks emphasizes the fire's constructive possibilities: if the community burns, then it will be re-born whole and beautiful afterward. The lines "Lies are told and legends made. / Phoenix rises unafraid" (lines 104-05) contain the essence of the riot: it is a moment of fire and explosion that will lead to wholeness. (9)

The riot itself is recreated in a montage of images. It begins with the peaceful image of "goldenrod across the little lagoon" (line 3), recalling Brooks's deployment of the common daisy as a metaphor for beauty in her novel Maud Martha (rpt. in Blacks). But on West Madison Street is Jessie's Kitchen, where customers are now watching the "crazy flowers" "spreading / and hissing This is / it" (lines 20, 21-23). A sudden pause strikes the neighborhood as the riot begins. Then "the young men run" (line 24). They loot stores but steal selectively, choosing the African American Melvin Van Peebles over the white Bing Crosby. Young people, "BEANLESS," "long-stomped, long-straddled"--in other words, desperately poor, beaten down, and "straddled" by white Americans for nearly 500 years, with no sophisticated analysis of their situation, simply join in, stealing a radio with which to listen to artists like James Brown (33). Brooks's choice of James Brown is notable; she continually emphasizes African American artists and cultures in the rioters' decision, signifying that their choices are not haphazard. Fires are set, candles "curse--/ inverting the deeps of the darkness" (lines 49-50). Then arrives "The Law," and the rioters scatter (line 56). After the National Guard and the guns arrive, an African American woman, a mother, a lover, "a gut gal" dies (line 71). Who has killed her is unexplained, but she dies directly after the Guard arrives, and the newspaper reports that "Nine die" in all (line 80). The Sun-Times also offers to check out rumors, an indication of the shadowy nature of riots; few facts exist beyond the death toll. Refusing to participate are the Rangers, a well-known Chicago gang with the savvy not to join the explosion; they refuse to be crucified again. They "merely peer and purr, / and pass the Passion over" (lines 92-93). In short, not gangs, not criminals, not even militant activists, but ordinary people protest their poverty and political powerlessness through the riot.

Interspersed with the riot's participants is the Black Philosopher who interprets the events as they happen. Initially, the Black Philosopher provides a rationale for the riot: "Our chains are in the keep of the Keeper / in a labeled cabinet / on the second shelf by the cookies" (lines 5-7). The gluttonous white Americans, whose only interest is in gorging on the sweet parts of life, refuse to hear the rattling of the chains and instead "crunch" their cookies (11). Militantly, the Philosopher suggests that they should listen better because the music is named "'A / Death Song For You Before You Die,'" as has just happened to Cabot (lines 12-13). At the poem's end, the Philosopher offers additional insights. She describes the riot's participants: