Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Blevins Students Attend Poetry Reading

Eleven Blevins High School students and four teacher were invited to attend a special performance on Wednesday, February 28, at Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia as Gwendolyn Brooks presented "Brooks on Brooks." During the presentation this famous poet kept the audience of 500 sitting on the edge of their seats as she read her poems with a delightful raspy voice and gave some interesting and useful advice on writing poetry and life in general.

This spunky, small-framed woman told her followers," Speak the truth when you pick up paper and pen. This is not time for sonnets, but a time for raw, ragged free verse." This blunt, straight-to-the-point author focuses on the troubled times of our society.

Times have changed since Brooks was a child. She told of her mother wearing a flowery, starched apron and serving her cocoa and cookies after school, but unfortunately today many children are coming home to crack. Her new book of poetry entitled \F5\Children Coming Home\F3\ is a collection of 20 poems about children coming home for different situations.

Before reading the poem \F5\The Mother\F3\, she set the record straight and informed the group that she was not the subject of this poem as so many English teachers have told. The experience of the abortions was the first- hand feelings from a friend named Pearl. Brooks also pointed out that she had never given anyone permission to use her poem as either a pro-abortion tool or an anti-abortion tool. The poet went on to say that she had never had an abortion, and then she proceeded to inform the group about her son and daughter.

This blunt woman will be 79 in June and has been married 57 years. Upon being told the number of years of marriage for Brooks, the audience congratulated her with applause. She thanked them, and laughingly stated that she would take her husband's half of the applause home to him.

When asked how old she felt, she replied, "I feel 3, 5, 7, 13, 30 and all ages in between at different times." Her advice to staying active is to choose to enter a kind of work you really love, and then you will have a happy life.

After 77 awards, including being named the first black to receive a Pulitzer Prize and replacing Carl Sandburg as the Illinois' Poet Laureate, she claims that ther greatest accomplishment in life is having her children. She paused in the middle of readging a poem to inform the audience that everyone must try putting peanut butter into beef stew. (She prefers chunky.) Brooks revealed that she is often the oldest person in a room, but in her case the oldest is just as alive as the youngest.

The following day at a small private luncheon at SAU in the Blue and Gold Alumni Room, a well-rested and relaxed Brooks spoke very candidly with the group about various things. She told the assembly about meeting Langston Hughes when she was 16 and her history teacher who had been the first person to encourage her to pursue writing. She laughingly told the company that she did a book report in verse, and the teacher was very impressed because no one had ever done that.

Brooks said that she found everyone in southern Arkansas to be pleasant, and friendly. Someone was always smiling and saying hello. In her hometown of Chicago, everyone is afraid of everyone else.

With the small gathering of 20, she laughed and joked about writing and life over lunch. After several hours the group was still glued to their seats, hanging on to every word of this terrific example of American history.

Sandi Pennington and Ruth Steely were special guests at this luncheon. Pennington was the only high school student invited to attend this small affair, and she is a freshman at Blevins High School. This young lady was named the Dan Ford award winner at last year's SAU Writing Festival. Steely is an English teacher at Blevins High School.

Gwendolyn Brooks was only 11 years old when she won her first award for writing, and 68 years later she has managed to achieve so many great things in her life. She has been given honorary doctoral degrees from a number of universities, had dinner with the president, won numerous awards, and used her pen and paper as a tool to educate the public on important issues.

This outstanding writer left both audiences with the feeling that she was a friend to each and everyone in the room. Brooks was very personable and friendly; she signed each autograph and added a personal note to each one. She often asked as many questions of the person to whom she was speaking as he or she asked of her.

Anyone who did not have the opportunity to visit with Gwendolyn Brooks misssed meeting one of the finest human beings who has ever lived.