Pilgrimage of poems: We lurk late

If you’ve not yet met Pulitzer Prize winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks, I’m honored to make the introduction. Brooks reminds me a little of Dorothy Parker inasmuch as she packs tremendous wallop in such a few words. It’s like she distills her experience down to the barest essence, and then sets you alight with it.

Of course, you can also liken her to Maya Angelou. Look at Angelou’s “Phenomenal Woman” (including her reading it), and then get to know Brooks’ “Weaponed Woman”. They’re kin, don’t you think?

“Weaponed Woman”

Well, life has been a baffled vehicle

And baffling. But she fights, and

Has fought, according to her lights and

The lenience of her whirling-place.

She fights with semi-folded arms,

Her strong bag, and the stiff

Frost of her face (that challenges “When” and “If.”)

And altogether she does Rather Well.

I believe that all girls should aspire to do Rather Well.

But the poem of hers I love most is “We Real Cool”. This is what I mean when I say she delivers nothing but the purest distillation of the lives, aspirations and predictable future for the pool players. And then she sets a match to it.

“We Real Cool”

The Pool Players.

Seven at the golden shovel.

We real cool. We

Left school. We

Lurk late. We

Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We

Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We

Die soon.

And now listen to her (and then Morgan Freeman) read it.