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Killing John Cabot and publishing black: Gwendolyn Brooks's Riot
African American Review, Winter, 2002 by James D. Sullivan
Notes
(1.) Ann Folwell Stanford, however, reads "Gay Chaps at the Bar"--as well as Negro Hero," also included in A Street in Bronzeville--as seering racial critique. Stanford's reading suggests that Engle picked a series of poems with some of the greatest engagement in racial politics in order to deny the relevance of a racially specific interpretation.
(2.) Upon the 1993 reissue of Brooks's Selected Poems, Simpson wrote that, after his notorious 1963 review, Brooks had thanked him for it, and he insisted that his remark had subsequently been misinterpreted (Wright 23). In the second volume of her autobiography, Brooks reprints her teasing introduction to Simpson's reading at a Poetry Society of America event, alluding playfully to that infamous remark (Report from Part Two 114-15).
(3.) Ironically, this includes the remarks of African American reviewer J. Saunders Redding.
(4.) The fullest account of this incident appears in Kent 210-11, though Brooks comments in an interview on Kent's lack of "sympathy with my constant announced concern for the taverneers" (Hull and Gallagher 22).
(5.) The cover was designed by Cledie Taylor, who also used a white-on-black design for the 1966 Broadside Press broadside edition of Brooks's poem 'We Real Cool." On the ways that particular design choice can alter readings of this poem, see Sullivan 33-38.
(6.) Other critics have commented on the continuities before and after 1967, the year Brooks has claimed to have made the decisive break in her career. See, for example, Baker 50, Bolden xiv, Lindberg 284-85, and Lowney 19.
Works Cited
Baker, Houston A., Jr. Singers of Daybreak: Studies in Black American Literature. 1974. Washington, DC: Howard UP, 1982.
Bolden, B. J. Urban Rage in Bronzeville: Social Commentary in the Poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks. Chicago: Third World P, 1999.
Brooks, Gwendolyn. Blacks. Chicago: David, 1987.
-----. Report from Part One. Detroit: Broadside P, 1972.
-----. Report from Part Two. Chicago: Third World P, 1996.
-----. Riot. Detroit: Broadside P, 1969.
Brown, Martha H., and Marilyn Zorn. "GLR Interview: Gwendolyn Brooks." Great Lakes Review 6.1 (1979): 48-55.
Davis, Arthur P. "Gwendolyn Brooks." Wright 97-105.
Engle, Paul. "Chicago Can Take Pride in New, Young Voice in Poetry." Wright 3-4.
Fuller, Hoyt W. "Toward a Black Aesthetic." The Black Aesthetic. Ed. Addison Gayle, Jr. Garden City: Anchor, 1972. 3-11.
Garland, Phyl. "Gwendolyn Brooks: Poet Laureate." Ebony July 1968: 48-56.
Hull, Gloria T., and Posey Gallagher. "Update on Part One: An Interview with Gwendolyn Brooks." CLA Journal 21.1 (1977): 19-40.
Israel, Charles. "Gwendolyn Brooks." American Poets Since World War II: Part 1: A-K. Ed. Donald J. Greiner. Dictionary of Literary Biography 5. Detroit: Gale, 1980. 100-06.
Jaffe, Dan. "Gwendolyn Brooks: An Appreciation from the White Suburbs." Wright 50-59.
Kent, George E. A Life of Gwendolyn Brooks. Lexington: U of Kentucky P, 1990.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. Address. Ohio Northern U, Ada, OH. 11 Jan. 1968. Heterick Memorial Library, Ohio Northern U. 21 Mar. 2000. <http://www.onu.edu/library/king96.htm>
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