Brooks Anthologized

Brooks and her work were commemorated in a host of anthologies and biographies in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Her portrait appeared on the Wall of Respect mural by William Walker in Bronzeville, Chicago, a site of artistic pilgrimage for many before it was destroyed by fire in 1971. Dudley Randall’s Broadside Press published a series of prints called Poems of the Negro Revolt, which included Brooks’s seminal “We Real Cool” in a dynamic black-and-white design by graphic artist Cledie Collins Taylor (1926 –). As an art object (see Case 6), both the text and its representation literalize the harshness of black-and-white distinctions, the typography emphasizing the casual nature of violence.

Brooks’s poetic legacy also lies in a new poetic form: the golden shovel. Black poet Terrance Hayes (1971–) wrote an homage to Brooks, “The Golden Shovel,” in which the final word of each line of verse recreates a line from another work; in this case, Hayes’s poem reproduces the text of “We Real Cool.” A 2017 collection, The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks, consists entirely of golden shovel poems drawn from Brooks’s work, with contributions from contemporary luminaries Joy Harjo (1951–), Rita Dove (1952–), and Tracy K. Smith (1972–).