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Gwendolyn Brooks, 1917-2000: The Poet was the First African American to Win a Pulitzer Prize for Literature Transcript of radio broadcast:
VOICE ONE:
I’m Shirley Griffith.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Sarah Long with the VOA Special English program, PEOPLE IN AMERICA.
Today we tell about the life of award-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks. She was the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize for Literature.
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VOICE ONE:
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Gwendolyn Brooks wrote hundreds of poems during her lifetime. She had more than twenty books published. She was known around the world for using poetry to increase understanding about black culture in
Gwendolyn Brooks wrote many poems about being black during the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties. Her poems described conditions among the poor, racial inequality and drug use in the black community. She also wrote poems about the struggles of black women.
But her skill was more than her ability to write about struggling black people. She was an expert at the language of poetry. She combined traditional European poetry styles with the African American experience.
VOICE TWO:
Gwendolyn Brooks once said that she wrote about what she saw and heard in the street. She said she found most of her material looking out of the window of her second-floor apartment house in
In her early poetry, Gwendolyn Brooks wrote about the South Side of Chicago. The South Side of Chicago is where many black people live. In her poems, the South Side is called Bronzeville. It was “
Here she is reading from her nineteen forty-five collection, “
GWENDOLYN BROOKS:
"My father, it is surely a blue place and straight. Right, regular, where I shall find no need for scholarly nonchalance or looks a little to the left or guards upon the heart."
VOICE ONE:
In nineteen fifty, Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature. She won the prize for her second book of poems called “Annie Allen.” “Annie Allen” is a collection of poetry about the life of a Bronzeville girl as a daughter, a wife and mother. She experiences loneliness, loss, death and being poor.
Miz Brooks said that winning the prize changed her life.
Her next work was a novel written in nineteen fifty-three called “Maud Martha.” “Maud Martha” received little notice when it first was published. But now it is considered an important work by some critics. Its main ideas about the difficult life of many women are popular among female writers today.
VOICE TWO:
Gwendolyn Brooks wrote poems about the black experience in
By the early nineteen sixties, Miz Brooks had reached a
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VOICE ONE:
Gwendolyn Brooks was born in
In a radio broadcast in nineteen sixty-one, Miz Brooks said her mother urged her to develop her poetic skills:
GWENDOLYN BROOKS:
"My mother took me to the library when I was about four or five. I enjoyed reading poetry and I tried to write it when I was about seven, at the time that I first tried to put rhymes together. And I have loved it ever since."
VOICE TWO:
Gwendolyn Brooks married Henry L. Blakely in nineteen thirty-nine. Henry Blakely was a young writer who later published his own poetry. They lived in Chicago for the next thirty years, divorced in nineteen sixty-nine, but re-united in nineteen seventy-three. They had two children, Nora Brooks Blakely and Henry Blakely.
Throughout her life, Miz Brooks supported herself through speaking appearances, poetry readings and part-time teaching in colleges. She also received money from organizations that offered grants designed to support the arts.
VOICE ONE:
One of Gwendolyn Brooks's most famous poems is called “We Real Cool”. It is a short poem that talks about young people feeling hopeless:
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
VOICE TWO:
By the end of the nineteen sixties, Gwendolyn Brooks’s poetry expanded from the everyday experiences of people in Bronzeville. She wrote about a wider world and dealt with important political issues. She won praise for her sharper, real-life poetic style.
Gwendolyn Brooks was affected by the civil rights struggles and social changes taking place in America. She began to question her relations with whites. She said she felt that black poets should write for black people.
That became evident in her next collection of poetry in nineteen sixty-eight called “In the Mecca.” Critics suggested Miz Brooks had become too political and seemed to be writing only for black people. Her new poems received little notice in the press.
VOICE ONE:
In some of her poems, Gwendolyn Brooks described how what people see in life is affected by who they are. One example is this poem, “Corners on the Curving Sky”:
Our earth is round, and, among other things
That means that you and I can hold
completely different
Points of view and both be right.
The difference of our positions will show
Stars in your window. I cannot even imagine.
Your sky may burn with light,
While mine, at the same moment,
Spreads beautiful to darkness.
Still, we must choose how we separately corner
The circling universe of our experience
Once chosen, our cornering will determine
The message of any star and darkness we
encounter.
VOICE TWO:
Although her poetry did not receive much notice in the press, Gwendolyn Brooks continued to receive honors. She was chosen poet laureate of the state of Illinois in nineteen sixty-eight. In nineteen seventy-six, she became the first black woman to be elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
She received a lifetime achievement award from the National Endowment for the Arts in nineteen eighty-nine. And she was named the nineteen ninety-four Jefferson Lecturer by the National Endowment for the Humanities. That is the highest honor given by the federal government for work in the humanities.
Miz Brooks once said that of all the awards she received, there was only one that meant a lot to her. It was given to her at a workshop in an old theater in Chicago. She said: “I was given an award for just being me, and that’s what poetry is to me – just being me.”
VOICE ONE:
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Although she was well known, Gwendolyn Brooks lived a quiet life. She said her greatest interest was being involved with young people. She spent time giving readings at schools, prisons and hospitals. She also attended yearly poetry competitions for Chicago children. She often paid for the awards given to the winners.
Haki Madhubuti directs the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Creative Writing and Black Literature at Chicago State University. He said Miz Brooks felt children would help lead the way toward healing the wounds of the United States civil rights movement of the nineteen sixties. One young student talked about how Miz Brooks’s poetry affected her. She said that Gwendolyn Brooks’s writings influenced her to write down how she truly felt deep inside.
VOICE TWO:
Gwendolyn Brooks influenced many African American writers. Friends say her prize-winning works also helped other black Americans to develop their own sense of identity and culture.
Doctors discovered Miz Brooks had cancer in November, two thousand. She died December third at her home in Chicago. She was eighty-three.
The funeral service was held on the South Side, the same area of the city that had been a window for much of Miz Brooks’s poetry. The service was at times filled with laughter. There were warm remembrances of a woman whose life and words had touched people forever. African drums sounded and dancers leaped.
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VOICE ONE:
This Special English program was written and produced by Cynthia Kirk. I’m Shirley Griffith.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Sarah Long. Join us again next week for another PEOPLE IN AMERICA program on the Voice of America.
Langston Hughes: An American Writer
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VOICE ONE:
I'm Mary Tillotson.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Steve Ember with the VOA Special English program, PEOPLE IN AMERICA. Today, we tell about writer Langston Hughes, who has been called the poet voice of African Americans.
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VOICE ONE:
Langston Hughes is usually thought of as a poet. But he also wrote novels, plays, short stories, essays, autobiographies, newspaper columns, children's books, and the words to operas. He also translated into English the works of foreign poets.
Hughes was one of the first black writers who could support himself by his writings. He is praised for his ability to say what was important to millions of black people.
Hughes produced a huge amount of work during his lifetime. He also has influenced the work of many other writers. He wrote for almost fifty years.
VOICE TWO:
Langston Hughes was famous for his descriptions of black American life. He used his work to praise his people and voice his concerns about race and social injustice. His work is known all around the world and has been translated into many languages.
Hughes's poetry had serious messages. He often wrote about racial issues, describing his people in a realistic way. Although his story was not often pleasant, he told it with understanding and with hope.
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VOICE ONE:
Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, in Nineteen-Oh-Two. His parents were separated. He spent most of his childhood with his grandmother in Lawrence, Kansas. She told him stories about their family and their fight to end slavery. Her storytelling filled him with pride in himself and his race. He first began to write poetry when he was living with her.
When he was fourteen, he moved to Cleveland, Ohio, to stay with his mother and her new husband.
He attended Central High School in Cleveland, Ohio. Langston was named Class Poet one year. He published his first short stories while he was still in high school.
VOICE TWO:
Langston Hughes struggled with a feeling of loneliness caused by his parent's divorce. He developed a love of reading books as a way to deal with the lack of time his parents spent with him. His love for reading grew into a desire to write. He wanted to reproduce the powerful effect other writers had made upon him. Among the early influences on his writing were poets Walt Whitman, Carl Sandburg and Paul Lawrence Dunbar.
After graduating from high school in Nineteen-Twenty, Langston moved to Mexico City to live with his father for one year. His father had moved there to escape racism in America. His father did not offer much warmth to his son. Yet, Langston turned the pain caused by his family problems into one of his most famous poems, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." In this poem, he speaks of the strength and pride of black people in ancient African civilizations and in America.
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VOICE ONE:
Langston Hughes learned a lot about race, and about social and economic conditions while he was in Mexico. His ability to speak Spanish and his brown skin often made it easy for him to appear to be a native. Many of his works, including a play for children, deal with his days in Mexico.
During the time he stayed with his father in Mexico, Langston wrote many poems because he was always unhappy. He once said that he usually created his best work when he was really not happy.
Langston had a troubled relationship with his father from which he never recovered fully. His father did not think he could earn a living as a writer. His mother, however, recognized his need to be a poet.
VOICE TWO:
Langston's father agreed to pay for his college education at Columbia University in New York City, if he studied engineering. Langston arrived in New York when he was nineteen years old. At the end of that first year at Columbia, he left school, broke with his father, and began traveling. Traveling was a lifelong love that would take him throughout the world before he died.
In Nineteen-Twenty-Two, Hughes took a job on a ship and sailed to Africa. He would later sail to France, Russia, Spain and Italy. He wrote poems and short stories during his travels. His experiences while traveling greatly influenced his work. He sent a few of his writings back home. They were published, which helped establish him as a professional writer.
Financial problems ended Hughes's travels. He tried to find work on a ship so he could return to the United States. But in Italy, he had problems finding work on a ship because he was black. In the poem, "I, Too", he noted that the American color line even reached all the way over there.
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VOICE ONE:
In Nineteen-Twenty-Four, Langston Hughes returned to the United States to live with his mother in Washington, D.C. The poet Vachel Lindsay ate in a hotel where Hughes was working. Hughes put some poems he had written next to Lindsay's dinner plate. Lindsay gave a poetry reading later that night. He read some of Hughes's poetry, too. Newspapers across the country wrote about Lindsay's poetry reading. Hughes became known as a new black poet.
A year later, Hughes returned to New York. Through the years he lived in many places, but always came back to New York's Harlem area. Harlem was the center of black life in New York City. Hughes's creativity was influenced by his life in Harlem.
VOICE TWO:
Langston Hughes returned to New York during a period called the Harlem Renaissance. It took place during the Nineteen-Twenties and Thirties. The Harlem Renaissance was a period of great artistic creativity among black people. For the first time, black artistic expression was being widely recognized. Hughes became friends with other great black writers of the time, such as Claude McKay, Countee Cullen and Zora Neal Hurston. They hoped that great art could change the racist ideas in America about African Americans.
Hughes was considered one of the leading voices of the Harlem Renaissance. He was the first poet to use the rhythms of black music. He often wrote about the everyday experiences of black working people. And he helped bring the movement of jazz and the sound of black speech into poetry.
VOICE ONE:
Langston Hughes experimented with his writing. Other Harlem Renaissance writers wrote traditional poems like those of English classic poets, such as William Shakespeare. Hughes broke free with his writing and helped change literature forever.
Hughes became firmly established as a successful writer in Nineteen-Twenty-Six with the publication of a collection of jazz poems called "The Weary Blues." Hughes wrote the poems in a place in Harlem where blues music was played. He loved to write while sitting in clubs listening to blues and jazz. The title poem, "The Weary Blues," was written to be played with musical instruments. The poem perfectly expressed the desire of Langston Hughes to combine black music and speech in his poetry.
VOICE THREE:
"I got the Weary Blues and I can't be satisfied. Got the Weary Blues and can't be satisfied. I ain't happy no mo' and I wish that I had died."
"And far into the night he crooned that tune. The stars went out and so did the moon. The singer stopped playing and went to bed '€" while the Weary Blues echoed through his head. He slept like a rock or a man that's dead."
VOICE TWO:
Poems in "The Weary Blues" are warm and full of color. They have a sense of freedom, like that of jazz music. Langston Hughes was excited about the new form of poetry he had discovered for himself.
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VOICE ONE:
This Special English program was written by Cynthia Kirk. It was produced by Caty Weaver. The poetry was read by Langston Hughes and Shep O'Neal. I'm Mary Tillotson.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Steve Ember. Join us again next week for another PEOPLE IN AMERICA program on VOA when we finish the story of the life of Langston Hughes.
Langston Hughes: Considered the Poet Voice of African Americans
(MUSIC) VOICE ONE: I'm Mary Tillotson. VOICE TWO: And I'm Steve Ember with the VOA Special English program PEOPLE IN AMERICA. Today we finish telling about the life of Langston Hughes, known as the poet voice of African Americans. He was one of the most important writers of the Harlem Renaissance. (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: Langston Hughes was born in nineteen oh-two. His parents separated when he was little. Langston grew up with his grandmother who told him stories about their family's fight against racial injustice. He developed a love of reading books as a way to deal with loneliness and a feeling of rejection from his parents. His love for reading grew into a desire to write. As a young man, Langston traveled to Europe and Africa working on ships. He wrote poems and short stories during his travels. A few of the writings he sent home were published, which helped establish him as a professional writer. VOICE TWO: By nineteen twenty-five, Langston Hughes had returned to the United States and was living in Harlem in New York City. This was during the Harlem Renaissance, a period of great artistic creativity among blacks who lived there. Hughes discovered a new way of writing poetry, using the rhythms of jazz and blues to support his words. His first collection of poetry, called the "Weary Blues," was published in nineteen twenty-six. Hughes wrote poetry about the common experiences of black people. People said they could see themselves in the words of his poetry. VOICE ONE: Hughes had worked many different jobs, but wished to make a living as a writer. Wealthy white supporters of the Harlem Renaissance helped Hughes until he could support himself. Critic Carl Van Vechten had helped to get the "The Weary Blues" published. Van Vechten was one of the first to recognize the new styles of the writers of the Harlem Renaissance and their importance in African American literature. Another supporter of the arts, Amy Spingarn, gave Hughes money to complete his education at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. Missus Charlotte Mason began supporting Hughes in nineteen twenty-seven. In nineteen thirty, he published a novel, "Not Without Laughter," that made him very famous. His relationship with Missus Mason ended about the time the book appeared. After that, Hughes sank into a period of intense personal unhappiness. (MUSIC) VOICE TWO: In the early nineteen thirties, Langston Hughes traveled to Cuba and Haiti. He later traveled across the southern United States, doing poetry readings and trying to sell his books. Hughes was likeable and gained many readers during his visit to the South. He also began to write many different short stories that were published in magazines. In these, he was able to discuss ideas related to black pride, racism and other issues of black life. In nineteen thirty-two, Hughes traveled to the Soviet Union. He became an active supporter of communism. He believed communism was fairer to minorities. During this time, his writing also became more militant. Several of his poems expressed support for social and political protests. Later, his writings began to examine the unfairness of life in America. He wrote about people whose lives were affected by racism and sexual conflicts, violence in the southern United States, Harlem street life, poverty, racism, hunger and hopelessness. VOICE ONE: Hughes wrote one of his most important works in nineteen twenty-six, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain." It spoke of black writers and poets who want to be considered as poets, not black poets. Hughes thought this meant they wanted to write like white poets. He argued there was a need for race pride and artistic independence: (SOUND) "We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they aren't, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too'€¦If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, as strong as we know how. And we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves." VOICE TWO: As his success as a writer grew, Langston Hughes began to explore other ways to spread his message. He wrote children's stories and several plays. By nineteen forty, he had opened black theater groups in Harlem, Chicago and Los Angeles. While writing for a black newspaper, Hughes created someone called "Jesse B. Semple." The name "Jesse B. Semple" represented Hughes's writing style: Just Be Simple. Semple was a common man of the people who "tells it like it is." His experiences help other people understand the world in a clearer light. Hughes spoke through his character: (SOUND) Here is more of "Jesse B. Semple" read by Langston Hughes. (SOUND) VOICE ONE: Langston Hughes was known to be very supportive of young writers and poets. Some said his willingness to help young writers was a result of his unhappy childhood. Wherever he went, from the Caribbean to Africa to Russia, he connected with writers and gave them support. He also translated some of their writings into English and included them in collections he produced. Not everyone praised Hughes' work. Some critics said his writings were too simple and lacked depth. Some blacks condemned his informal writing style and honest descriptions of black life. They also criticized his use of blues and jazz in his poetry and his expressions of sympathy for working people. However, his supporters praised his straightforward writing style. They said he demonstrated that writing does not have to be complex to be great. VOICE TWO: In nineteen fifty-one, Hughes wrote one of his most successful collections of jazz poetry called, "Montage of a Dream Deferred." The poems are expressions of everyday life in Harlem. They take the reader through one complete day and night in Harlem. In some of the poems, Hughes uses a new kind of jazz played in Harlem at the time, called "Be-Bop." The poems deal with the problem of being black in America. In "Harlem," the most famous poem in the collection, he asks: (SOUND) VOICE ONE: There were difficult times for Langston Hughes. Conservatives in the United States were suspicious of his ties to extremist movements, his activism, and his support of the Soviet Union for its treatment of minorities. In nineteen fifty-three, he was forced to appear before Senator Joseph McCarthy's committee on subversive activities to explain his interest in communism. Under pressure during the nineteen fifties, Hughes softened the voice of his poems and rejected his militant past. He was criticized later by some black activists for not being militant enough. Hughes continued to write and publish throughout the nineteen fifties and sixties. And he won several important awards during that time. He also taught at Atlanta University and the University of Chicago. VOICE TWO: Hughes died of cancer in nineteen sixty-seven in Harlem, New York. His home on one hundred twenty-seventh sreet has been made a national landmark. Experts say Langston Hughes helped to change the sound of American literature. They say he wrote poems the world will always know. (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: This Special English program was written and produced by Cynthia Kirk. I'm Mary Tillotson. VOICE TWO: And I'm Steve Ember. Join us again next week for another PEOPLE IN AMERICA program on the Voice of America. (MUSIC)
