Quality: Gwendolyn Brooks at 73

June 7, 1990

breath,

life after seven decades plus three years

is a lot of breathing. seventy three years on this

earth is a lot of taking in and giving out, is a

life of coming from somewhere and for many a bunch

of going nowhere.

how do we celebrate a poet who has created

music with words for over fifty years, who has

showered magic on her people, who has redefined

poetry into a black world exactness

thereby giving the universe an insight into

darkroads?

just say she interprets beauty and wants to

give life, say she is patient with phoniness

and doesn’t mind people calling her gwen or sister.

say she sees the genius in our children, is visionary

about possibilities, sees as clearly as ray charles and

stevie wonder, hears like determined elephants looking

for food. say that her touch is fine wood, her memory

is like an african roadmap detailing adventure and

clarity, yet returning to chicago’s south evans

to record the journey. say her voice is majestic

and magnetic as she speaks in poetry, rhythms, song

and spirited trumpets, say she is dark skinned,

melanin rich, small-boned, hurricane-willed,

with a mind like a tornado redefining the landscape.

life after seven decades plus three years

is a lot of breathing.

gwendolyn, gwen, sister g has

not disappointed our expectations.

in the middle

of her eldership she brings us

vigorous language, memory,

illumination.

she brings breath.

Source: Heartlove: Wedding and Love Poems (Third World Press, 1998)