Poetry is life distilled.
GWENDOLYN BROOKSPoetry is life distilled.
GWENDOLYN BROOKSBeware the easy griefs / that fool and fuel nothing.
GWENDOLYN BROOKSGoodness begins simply with the fact of life itself.
GWENDOLYN BROOKSI 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 BROOKSA writer should get as much education as possible, but just going to school is not enough; if it were, all owners of doctorates would be inspired writers.
GWENDOLYN BROOKSWhen you use the term minority or minorities in reference to people, you’re telling them that they’re less than somebody else.
GWENDOLYN BROOKSReading is important – read between the lines. Don’t swallow everything.
GWENDOLYN BROOKSThe poetry is myself.
GWENDOLYN BROOKSWhen I start writing a poem, I don’t think about models or about what anybody else in the world has done.
GWENDOLYN BROOKSTruth-tellers are not always palatable. There is a preference for candy bars.
GWENDOLYN BROOKSDo not be afraid of no, Who has so far, so very far to go.
GWENDOLYN BROOKSTo be in love Is to touch things with a lighter hand. In yourself you stretch, you are well.
GWENDOLYN BROOKSI believe we should all know each other, we human carriers of so many pleasurable differences. To not know is to doubt, to shrink from, sidestep or destroy.
GWENDOLYN BROOKSWith melted opals for my milk, Pearl-leaf for my cracker.
GWENDOLYN BROOKSThe 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 BROOKSI swear to keep the dead upon my mind, / Disdain for all time to be overglad.
GWENDOLYN BROOKS