麻豆社

麻豆社 Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the 麻豆社's radio poetry archive with 'We Real Cool' - The Poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brooks was an African American poet whose imagination, conscience and passion for words made her the first black poet to win the Pulitzer Prize, in 1950. Narrated by her daughter Nora Brooks Blakely, this is portrait features friends and fellow poets - including Sonia Sanchez and Haki Madhubuti.

Publishing her first poem at 13 - when she hit 16, Gwendolyn was publishing in newspapers serving Chicago's black population. Early critics welcomed her as 'a real poet writing poignant social documents.'

Her poems are portraits of ordinary people she observed day-to-day. She moulded them into memorable characters like Annie Allen, Rudolph Reed and Satin Legs Smith. Her deepest compassion though was for young people, particularly struggling youth. Her most famous poem, We Real Cool, is about children skipping school - still spoken aloud today by children who learn it by heart.

Brooks believed she had a social and political role as a poet and became one of the most visible articulators of the "black aesthetic" as the Black Arts Movement took off in the late 1960s. Her commitment to nurturing black literature led her to leave major publisher Harper & Row in favour of a fledgling black company. When she was appointed poet laureate of Illinois in 1968, she used her role to visit schools, prisons, and rehabilitation centres to help people 'see the poetry in their lives.' She always claimed her greatest achievement was teaching people that poetry isn't a formal activity but an art form within the reach of everybody.

Produced by Sarah Cuddon

A Falling Tree production for 麻豆社 Radio 4 from 2015.