Monday, June 26, 2017

Monday Muse: 'We Real Cool' (Video)


This year marks the centennial of the birth of the highly influential poet Gwendolyn Brooks (June 7, 1917 - December 3, 2000). Adding to the many other forms of recognition of the centennial is the charming video below, produced by the Poetry Foundation. From Manual Cinema in association with Crescendo Literary, the video uses paper-cut puppetry to imagine what inspired Brooks to write her famous poem "We Real Cool". The story is by Eve Ewing and Nate Marshall and the music by Jamila Woods and Ayanna Woods; the director is Drew Dir of Manual Cinema.

Commissioned by the Poetry Foundation for the centenary is a live, staged production of No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks, by Eve L. Ewing and Nate Marshall; it premieres this November.







The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks, Louisiana Tech University

Gwendolyn Brooks Obituary (The New York Times)

Gwendolyn Brooks Page at Buffalo University, The Circles' Association

Gwendolyn Brooks Center, Chicago State University

Gwendolyn Brooks Cultural Center, Western Illinois University

Gwendolyn Brooks House, City of Chicago


Karen Grigsby Bates, "Remembering the Great Poet Gwendolyn Brooks at 100", NPR, May 29, 2017


Chicago Public Library, "Gwendolyn Brooks: Chicago's Poet", June 1, 2017


Betsy Schlabach, "The Love Between Langton Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks", Black Perspectives (AAIHS), February 13, 2017

"Frost? Williams? No, Gwendolyn Brooks", The Pulitzer Prizes 



Peter Kahn, Ravi Shankar, and Patricia Smith (Eds.), The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks (University of Arkansas Press, January 2017)

Quraysh Ali Lansana and Sandra Jackson-Opoku (Eds.), Revise the Psalm: Work Celebrating the Writing of Gwendolyn Brooks (Curbside Splendor, January 2017)

Quraysh Ali Lansana and Georgia Popoff (Eds.), The Whiskey of Our Discontent: Gwendolyn Brooks as Conscience and Change Agent (Haymarket Books, Spring 2017)



Centennial Brooks - A Tribute Celebration, The University of Chicago (April 6-8, 2017)


Gwendolyn Brooks Centennial Poetry Prize, Furious Flower Poetry Center, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia


Our Miss Brooks 100 (This is an excellent site.)

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