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The forties and fifties were years of high poet-incense; the language-flowers were thickly sweet. Those flowers whined and begged white folks to pick them, to find them lovable. Then the ’60s: Independent fire!

Gwendolyn Brooks

Live not for Battles Won. Live not for The-End-of-the-Song. Live in the along.
GWENDOLYN BROOKS

Battle End Inspirational Live Song Win
I think there are things for all of us to do as long as we’re here and we’re healthy.
GWENDOLYN BROOKS

Health Myself Thinking
The forties and fifties were years of high poet-incense; the language-flowers were thickly sweet. Those flowers whined and begged white folks to pick them, to find them lovable. Then the ’60s: Independent fire!
GWENDOLYN BROOKS

Fire Flower Independent Language Poet Sweet
I tell poets that when a line just floats into your head, don’t pay attention ’cause it probably has floated into somebody else’s head.
GWENDOLYN BROOKS

Attention Float Head Poet Yourself
Be yourself. Don’t imitate other poets. You are as important as they are.
GWENDOLYN BROOKS

Be Yourself Imitation Important Poet Yourself
When white and black meet today, sometimes there is a ready understanding that there has been an encounter between two human beings. But often there is only, or chiefly, an awareness that Two Colors are in the room.
GWENDOLYN BROOKS

Black Color Human Room Understand White
Do not be afraid of no, Who has so far, so very far to go.
GWENDOLYN BROOKS

Afraid Journey Path Travel
What, what am I to do with all of this life?
GWENDOLYN BROOKS

Life Myself Philosophy Unknown
Beware the easy griefs / that fool and fuel nothing.
GWENDOLYN BROOKS

Easy Fools Fuel Grief
I like the concentration, the crush; I like working with language, as others like working with clay, or notes.
GWENDOLYN BROOKS

Focus Language Myself Note Work
The poetry is myself.
GWENDOLYN BROOKS

Myself Poetry
Even if you are not ready for day it cannot always be night.
GWENDOLYN BROOKS

Day Night Yourself
Sometimes you have to deal / Devilishly with drowning men in order to swim them to shore.
GWENDOLYN BROOKS

Deal Devil Friendship Man Save Yourself
We don’t ask a flower any special reason for its existence. We just look at it and are able to accept it as being something different from ourselves.
GWENDOLYN BROOKS

Acceptance Different Existence Flower Ourselves Reason
Good health is a duty to yourself, to your contemporaries, to your inheritors, to the progress of the world.
GWENDOLYN BROOKS

Goodness Health Inheritance Progress World
Life must be aromatic. There must be scent, somehow there must be some.
GWENDOLYN BROOKS

Life Perfume Sweet

The forties and fifties were years of high poet-incense; the language-flowers were thickly sweet. Those flowers whined and begged white folks to pick them, to find them lovable. Then the ’60s: Independent fire!

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The forties and fifties were years of high poet-incense; the language-flowers were thickly sweet. Those flowers whined and begged white folks to pick them, to find them lovable. Then the ’60s: Independent fire!

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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