July 27, 2023

In 1972 or ’73 I taught an English class at Webster Groves High School called “The Outnumbered.” I assume I was assigned that class because I was the youngest, least experienced member of the English department, and the chairs of the department thought I might relate to the “nontraditional” content more than some of the other teachers. In reality I was a white privileged woman who had received a classical English education, but I dug in and was determined to teach “relevant” material to my integrated classes in that St Louis suburb.

I remember introducing this poem by Gwendolyn Brooks.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon. 

I wish I could remember if there was any discussion about the poem, but I imagine that some of my students who had escaped inner city life knew much more about the meaning of this poem than I did. Over the years I read other poems by Gwendolyn Brooks and her famous counterparts like Langston Hughes and later one of her students, Nikki Giovanni, and I remember reading her children’s book, Bronzeville Boys and Girls, but I remember the illustrations by Faith Ringgold more than the words. I knew she was famous and celebrated. In fact, she was the first Black woman to be given the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (Annie Allen in 1950) and in 1985 she was the first Black woman to be named as the consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress (a role now known as poet laureate), and she was given the National Medal of the Arts in 1995. The list goes on….

Until recently, I had not read any of her novels, but a friend sent me Maud Martha (1953), a short book of only 180 pages, and I read it almost in one sitting–not just because it is short, but because the language, the rhythm of her sentences and the insights into the life of an African American woman in the ’50s was vivid, moving, and revealing.

But dandelions are what she chiefly saw. Yellow jewels for everyday, studding the patched green dress of her back yard. She liked their demure prettiness second to their everydayness; for in that latter quality she thought she saw a picture of herself, and it was comforting to find that what was common could also be a flower.

p. 2

My favorite chapter, perhaps, was”Kitchenette Folks,” which included descriptions of the people who lived in the building where Maud Martha, her husband Paul, and daughter Paulette lived. Marie “wore flimsy black nightgowns and bathed always once and sometimes twice a day in water generously treated with bath crystals…” or Clement Levy, a little boy. “Lewy life was not terrifically tossed. Saltless, rather. Or like an unmixed batter. Lumpy.”

There were also insights into black-white interactions.

Mrs Teenie Thompson. Fifty-three; and pepper whenever she talked of the North Shore people who had employed her as housemaid for ten years. ‘She went to hugging’ and kissin’ of me –course I got to receive it–I got to work for ’em. But they think they got me thinkin’ they love me. Then I’m supposed to kill my silly self slavin’ for ’em. To be worthy of their love. These old whi’ folks. They jive you, honey. Well, I jive ’em just like they jive me. They can’t beat me jivin’. They’ll have to jive much, to come anywhere near my mark in jivin’.’

p. 119

I know there is so much good contemporary fiction to read by persons of color, but consider spending time with a classic.

An Invitation

Have you read any “classics” recently? I would love to know.

A Request:

I am writing an article for one of my favorite publications about books and readers, BookWomen. http://www.bookwomen.net The topic is keeping a book journal and TBR lists. I would love to hear from any of you who keep lists of what you want to read and/or what you have read and any details about that process. Email me at nagneberg48@gmail.com