Our highlighted poet of the week, in honor of April being National Poetry Month, is Gwendolyn Brooks. She was born in Topeka, Kansas but raised in Chicago. In addition to being the author a novel, Maud Martha (1953), and other books, she is the author of more than 20 books of poetry. She was the recipient of multiple honorable awards and changed history. Amongst her accomplishments was her designation as the consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress (now commonly known as Poet Laureate), she was the first black woman to do so.

Art hurts. Art urges voyages - and it is easier to stay at home.

-Brooks

In an interview with George Stavros Brooks shared, “I want to write poems that will be non-compromising. I don’t want to stop a concern with words doing good jobs, which has always been a concern of mine, but I want to write poems that will be meaningful… things that will touch them.” The featured poem today is “kitchenette building,” while the reader is left to interpret poetry as it relates to them, remember google is your bff and can give some insight as to what Brooks was reaching for in this poem!

kitchenette building

We are things of dry hours and the involuntary plan,

Grayed in, and gray. “Dream” makes a giddy sound, not strong

Like “rent,” “feeding a wife,” “satisfying a man.”

But could a dream send up through onion fumes

Its white and violet, fight with fried potatoes

And yesterday’s garbage ripening in the hall,

Flutter, or sing an aria down these rooms

Even if we were willing to let it in,

Had time to warm it, keep it very clean,

Anticipate a message, let it begin?

We wonder. But not well! not for a minute!

Since Number Five is out of the bathroom now,

We think of lukewarm water, hope to get in it.

Gwendolyn Brooks, "kitchenette building" from Selected Poems, published by Harper & Row. Copyright © 1963 by Gwendolyn Brooks. Reprinted by consent of Brooks Permissions.

Source: Selected Poems (Harper & Row, 1963)