Today’s poem has been chosen and introduced by Head of English, Mr Fernandes.
It is by Gwendolyn Brooks. She was born in 1917, and she grew up in Chicago. Brooks was thirteen when her first published poem, Eventide, appeared in American Childhood (hello, FHS Year 8s). By theage of seventeen (hello, LVI), she had published a number of poems in Chicago Defender, a newspaper aimed at Chicagos black population. In 1949, she became the first ever black writer to win the Pulitzer Prize with her poetry collection Annie Allen. At the age of sixty-eight (no hellos this time), she became the first black woman to be appointed as poetry consultant to the Library of Congress.
In truth, Brooks speaker asks how we might greet the personified, long-awaited sun. She worries that we might dread him, even fear him, because we have spent so lengthy a/ Session with shade. Brooks wrote at length about racial discrimination in the United States, but her sun is also broad – we can use it to reflect any sense of longed-for change that we have wept for and prayed for, through thelengthy and evocative night-years.
Like all of our greatest artists, Brooks leaves us with questions. When change comes, what state will we be in? Will we yearn for the dear thick shelter and snug unawareness of our old lives, or will we step into the shimmering morning, jumping up into action when we hear the fierce hammering/[…] Hard on the door?
To help us answer this question, here is a suggestion: let us take our ideas and pour them into this poem. Let us take ownership of it. Let us question it and see if fits for us. We might like to do this with all works of art. They are ours to do with what we wish. Brooks gives us this freedom by omitting the capital T in her title. She does not suggest that she is delivering an unchanging capital T truth. She asks us questions.
The questions seem to multiply, the deeper we look. How are we questioning the capital T truth? What is our sun of change? Is it an age of equality for all? The end of lockdown? The end of online lessons? Something smaller? Something bigger? The choice, as ever, is ours.
truth
And if sun comes
How shall we greet him?
Shall we not dread him,
Shall we not fear him
After so lengthy a
Session with shade?
Though we have wept for him,
Though we have prayed
All through the night-years
What if we wake one shimmering morning to
Hear the fierce hammering
Of his firm knuckles
Hard on the door?
Shall we not shudder?
Shall we not flee
Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter
Of the familiar
Propitious haze?
Sweet is it, sweet is it
To sleep in the coolness
Of snug unawareness.
The dark hangs heavily
Over the eyes.
By Gwendolyn Brooks
