Bronzeville Boys and Girls by Gwendolyn Brooks

First published: 1956

Type of work: Poetry

The Poems

Gwendolyn Brooks’s Bronzeville Boys and Girls, a collection of thirty-four poems, portrays the lives of children living on the South Side of Chicago. While this area called Bronzeville has been known as an economically challenged and violence-plagued section of town, it was home to Brooks for her entire life, and she portrays its vibrancy with the assistance of illustrator Faith Ringgold, whose bold use of color captures the dynamic nature of the community and of the children who inhabit it. While Brooks’s first book of poetry, A Street in Bronzeville (1945), centered on the adults of the community, Bronzeville Boys and Girls, by concentrating on its youth, offers hope not only to children who live in communities such as Bronzeville but also to all children who are trying to figure out who they are and where they belong in the world.

The title of each poem in Brooks’s collection contains the name of one or two children. Some titles describe the children’s conditions or situations, as in “Cynthia in the Snow,” “John, Who Is Poor,” or “Robert Who Is Often a Stranger to Himself.” Most of the titles, however, consist solely of children’s names, a convention that serves not only to emphasize their subjects’ identities as individuals but also to help readers identify with those subjects.

In “Mexie and Bridie,” for example, two girls have a tea party much as any other two children might, with “Pink cakes, and nuts and bon-bons on/ A tiny, shiny tray.” They enjoy the weather and watch the ants and birds. With Mexie in her white dress and Bridie in her brown one, they stand out against the blue sky and green grass, considering themselves proper ladies. The title character of “Val,” on the other hand, is not quite so proper. He does not enjoy the sound of grownups laughing at parties and does not mind when his father chases him away. After all, he says, he would rather be in the basement, outside, or on his bicycle. “Timmy and Tawanda” describes two kids who think it is “a marvelous thing and all/ When aunts and uncles come to call,” because the children are “almost quite forgot” and “are free to plan and plot.” Whether trying to fit with established conventions or rebelling against them, the children in these three poems test social boundaries.

In some of the book’s other poems, Brooks portrays children doing things that set them apart from their peers. The subject of “Narcissa,” for instance, does not play jacks or ball with the other girls. In fact, she does not play “Anything at all.” Instead, she sits in her backyard, dreaming that she is “an ancient queen,” “a singing wind,” or a nightingale. All the while, she is “sitting still, as still, as still/ As anyone ever sat!” Here, Brooks shows how imagination can be as active as recreation. “Keziah” and “Charles” also portray children who go to secret places, Keziah “when the wind is rough” or his mother is scolding his big brother, and Charles at “Sick-times,” when he goes inside himself, then looks outside himself “At people passing by.” In these poems, Brooks portrays the need for children to have a psychological retreat.

That place of solace could also be helpful to John of “John, Who is Poor.” He “lives so lone and alone,” because his mother works all day and his father is “dead and done.” The poem’s narrative voice entreats the other children to be good to him and “not ask when his hunger will end” or “when it began.” A similar disappointment pervades “Otto,” which portrays a child who is not deprived of a father but does not receive the Christmas presents he wanted. He is careful, though, not to let his father know, for “It’s hard enough for him to bear.” What is hard for the father to bear is not stated explicitly. Perhaps it is the lack of money needed to buy the desired presents, the hard work that it takes to make what little money he has, or the absence of a wife and mother. In any case, Brooks depicts the sensitivity of a child to his father’s feelings.

Brooks also portrays appreciation for parents in poems such as “Andre,” “Eunice in the Evening,” and “The Admiration of Willie.” Andre dreams that he has to choose a mother and father and is confused by all of the possibilities. Just before he awakens, though, he knows what parents he would take: “the ones I always had!” Eunice is grateful to see everyone in the dining room, with “Daddy on the long settee—/ A child in every chair” and “Mama pouring cocoa.” Similarly, Willie appreciates the wisdom of “Grown folks” and all of the things that they can do, such as tying ties, baking cakes, and finding balls, not to mention “kissing children into bed/ After their prayers are said.” “The Admiration of Willie” ends Bronzeville Boys and Girls on a comforting note.

Critical Context

Like poets of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920’s and 1930’s, Brooks presented a vision of a community that could prosper and celebrate its culture despite hardship. Unlike the romantic, sometimes exoticized portrayal of African Americans that became the trademark of Harlem Renaissance poets, however, Brooks portrayed regular people who happened to face unique challenges and develop unique perspectives based on where and how they lived.

Although some reviewers have described Bronzeville Boys and Girls as a children’s book, meant to appeal to children of all backgrounds, it is clearly social commentary in its presentation of a particular community and a cross section of the children who live there. While their parents and other adults are in the background, it is clear that the children are affected by their economic challenges and the other hardships of growing up. In contrast to the retreat represented by Chicago’s white suburbs, Bronzeville in the mid-1950’s was exposed to the realities of crime and poverty. A decade before the Civil Rights movement, Brooks portrayed the tension lying beneath the surface while also showing children how they could transport themselves to other places through imagination, as well as appreciate the community in which they lived.

Bibliography

Alexander, Elizabeth. The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks. New York: Library of America, 2005. Selection of poems that are considered some of Brooks’s most important; the introduction provides biographical information about Brooks and critical insight into her work.

Brooks, Gwendolyn. Interview by Joan Kufrin. In Uncommon Women. Piscataway, N.Y.: New Century, 1981. Engaging interview with Brooks in which she discusses her origins and career as a poet as well as her desire to encourage others, particularly young people, to write poetry.

Flynn, Richard. “’The Kindergarten of New Consciousness’: Gwendolyn Brooks and the Social Construction of Childhood.” African American Review 34, no. 3 (2000): 483. Describes the lack of sentimentality in Bronzeville Boys and Girls compared to other mid-1950’s portrayals of childhood.

Hill, Christine M. Gwendolyn Brooks: “Poetry Is Life Distilled.” Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Enslow, 2005. Photo-illustrated biography of the poet; includes a chronology of her life and bibliography of her work.

Mootry, Maria K., and Gary Smith, eds. A Life Distilled: Gwendolyn Brooks, Her Poetry and Fiction. Illini Books ed. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1989. Varied selection of critical essays on Brooks’s poetry and fiction, including an essay titled “Paradise Regained: The Children of Gwendolyn Brooks’s Bronzeville.”