Tuesday, December 05, 2000

Gwendolyn Brooks, Whose Poetry Told of Being Black in America, Dies at 83 Ms. Brooks said that her reputation was bolstered by a review of "Bronzeville" in The Chicago Tribune by
Paul Engle, a poet and founder of the Iowa Writers School. Mr. Engle maintained that her poems were no
more "Negro poetry" than Robert Frost's poetry was "white poetry."

Among the poems in "Bronzeville' was "the old-marrieds," a portrait of an aging couple:

But in the crowding darkness not a word did they say.

Though the pretty-coated birds had piped so lightly all

the day.

And he had seen the lovers in the little side-streets.

And she had heard the morning stories clogged with

sweets.

It was quite a time for loving. It was midnight. It was

May.

But in the crowded darkness not a word did they say.

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