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The stunning only novel by the celebrated poet and first Black
author to win a Pulitzer Prize, introduced by Margo Jefferson.
'Such a wonderful book. Utterly unique, exquisitely crafted and
quietly powerful. I loved it and want everyone to read this lost
literary treasure.' Bernardine Evaristo 'Maud Martha finds beauty
in the brutal formative moments that make us. It is one of my
favorite depictions of how a woman comes to trust her eyes.' Raven
Leilani 'The quotidian rises to an exquisite portraiture of black
womanhood in the hands of one of America's most foundational
writers.' Claudia Rankine 'Maud Martha reveals the poetry, power
and splendor of an ordinary life.' Tayari Jones What, what, am I to
do with all of this life? Maud Martha Brown is a little girl
growing up on the South Side of 1940s Chicago. Amidst the crumbling
taverns and overgrown yards, she dreams: of New York, romance, her
future. She admires dandelions, learns to drink coffee, falls in
love, decorates her kitchenette, visits the Jungly Hovel, guts a
chicken, buys hats, gives birth. But her lighter-skinned husband
has dreams too: of the Foxy Cats Club, other women, war. And the
'scraps of baffled hate' - a certain word from a saleswoman; that
visit to the cinema; the cruelty of a department store Santa Claus-
are always there . Written in 1953 but never published in Britain,
Maud Martha is a poetic collage of happenings that forms an
extraordinary portrait of an ordinary life: one lived with wisdom,
humour, protest, rage, dignity, and joy.
Selected Poems is the classic volume by the distinguished and
celebrated poet Gwendolyn Brooks, winner of the 1950 Pulitzer
Prize, and recipient of the National Book Foundation Medal for
Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. This compelling
collection showcases Brooks's technical mastery, her warm humanity,
and her compassionate and illuminating response to a complex world.
This edition also includes a special PS section with insights,
interviews, and more--including a short piece by Nikki Giovanni
entitled Remembering Gwen. By 1963 the civil rights movement was in
full swing across the United States, and more and more African
American writers were increasingly outspoken in attacking American
racism and insisting on full political, economic, and social
equality for all. In that memorable year of the March on
Washington, Harper & Row released Brooks's Selected Poems,
which incorporated poems from her first three collections, as well
as a selection of new poems. This edition of Selected Poems
includes A Street in Bronzeville, Brooks's first published volume
of poetry for which she became nationally known and which led to
successive Guggenheim fellowships; Annie Allen, published one year
before she became the first African American author to win the
Pulitzer Prize in any category; and The Bean Eaters, her fifth
publication which expanded her focus from studies of the lives of
mainly poor urban black Americans to the heroism of early civil
rights workers and events of particular outrage--including the 1955
Emmett Till lynching and the 1957 school desegregation crisis in
Little Rock, Arkansas.
Discover the most enduring works of the legendary poet and first
black author to win a Pulitzer Prize-now in one collectible volume
"If you wanted a poem," wrote Gwendolyn Brooks, "you only had to
look out of a window. There was material always, walking or
running, fighting or screaming or singing." From the life of
Chicago's South Side she made a forceful and passionate poetry that
fused Modernist aesthetics with African-American cultural
tradition, a poetry that registered the life of the streets and the
upheavals of the 20th century. Starting with A Street in
Bronzeville (1945), her epoch-making debut volume, The Essential
Gwendolyn Brooks traces the full arc of her career in all its
ambitious scope and unexpected stylistic shifts. "Her formal
range," writes editor Elizabeth Alexander, "is most impressive, as
she experiments with sonnets, ballads, spirituals, blues, full and
off-rhymes. She is nothing short of a technical virtuoso." That
technical virtuosity was matched by a restless curiosity about the
life around her in all its explosive variety. By turns
compassionate, angry, satiric, and psychologically penetrating,
Gwendolyn Brooks' poetry retains its power to move and surprise.
About the American Poets Project Elegantly designed in compact
editions, printed on acid-free paper, and textually authoritative,
the American Poets Project makes available the full range of the
American poetic accomplishment, selected and introduced by today's
most discerning poets and critics.
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