A commentary on poverty and the systemic reproduction of takes the form of an older couple struggling to make ends meet on the most meager of terms amid the realization that finding a way out of their economic deprivation is mainly fantasy.
The Chicago Picasso
The arrival of the August 1967 the Seiji Ozawa-Mayor Daley-Picasso event sets the stage for contemplation of art as difficult and something that must be forged through effort and hard work in the face of so many other easier options.
The Sundays of Satin-Legs Smith
An evocative narrative presentation of a Sunday in the life of the zoot-suited titular character who loves nothing more than the looks he gets as he struts his stuff.
The Wall
A celebration of community art for art’s sake stands in contrast to the Picasso exhibition. Here the crumbling structure of the title is transformed into something more than mere art; it takes on the elevated dignity of a memorial to the people from the people.
Gay Chaps at the Bar
An illumination of the part played by black soldiers during the segregated military of World War II.
Riot
A fierce poem inspired by the rioting in Chicago in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. that takes the path of explanation by revealing the cause of the anger that stimulates violent reactions like rioting.
To Those of My Sisters Who Kept Their Naturals
A celebration of the choice of hairstyle as a radical statement of cultural resistance to assimilation.
The Near-Johannesburg Boy
A poem which seeks to find common ground and solace between those fighting Apartheid in South Africa and those fighting prejudice and racism in America.
How I Told My Child About Race
An autobiographic account of the time Brooks was walking with her son and they became targets of violent racist aggression in the form of young white men throwing rocks at them. The horror is underscored by the revelation that this assault took place in the supposed enlightened university district.
The Ballad of Pearl May Lee
A twist on the subject of racism in a tale of violence stirred by prejudice within the African-American community between factions representing dark skin and lighter-skinned blacks.
The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till
In which the full dimension of the terror of the legislated race-based murder of Emmitt Till comes down to a unpretentious portrait of a grieving mother sitting quietly in a room and drinking coffee after burying her son.
The Ballad of Rudolph Reed
A story about white disturbia where white men take it upon themselves to preserve the purity of their neighborhood by killing the first black man who dares to buy a house and think he can blend in.
Negro Hero
Another examination of the paradox of treating black soldiers like second class citizens while asking them to die for their country during World War II.
To the Young Who Want to Die
A change of course for the poet who had written extensively of the despair and hopelessness of her people in which the poetry becomes a defiant exclamation for self-preservation. The poem beseeches its title subjects to wait and take a breath. Upon exhalation will come the realization that the mechanisms for ending things will still be there tomorrow. And the next day. They aren’t going anywhere, so what's the rush?
An exercise in Langston Hughes-style jazz poetry that engages the rhythm of the music to tell a story a story about wasted youth and squandered potential in the urban ghetto.
