Gwendolyn Brooks died on this day in 2000, 20 years ago. She is one of the most admired, influential, and widely-read poets of 20th-century American poetry. She had the distinction of being the first Black author to win the Pulitzer Prize. She also was poetry consultant to the Library of Congress—the first Black woman to hold that position—and Poet Laureate of the State of Illinois.
Enjoy this, her poem, “An Aspect of Love, Alive in the Ice and Fire.”
In a package of minutes there is this We.
How beautiful.
Merry foreigners in our morning,
we laugh, we touch each other,
are responsible props and posts.
A physical light is in the room.
Because the world is at the window
we cannot wonder very long.
You rise. Although
genial, you are in yourself again.
I observe
your direct and respectable stride.
You are direct and self-accepting as a lion
in Afrikan velvet. You are level, lean,
remote.
There is a moment in Camaraderie
when interruption is not to be understood.
I cannot bear an interruption.
This is the shining joy;
the time of not-to-end.
On the street we smile.
We go
in different directions
down the imperturbable street.
Gwendolyn Brooks, “An Aspect of Love, Alive in the Ice and Fire” from Blacks. Copyright © 1987 by Gwendolyn Brooks.