Gwendolyn Brooks


I must get back to the work of writing. One must find the joy in the process without examining too closely the end results, which are often unfair.

We cannot after all change the world; we can only change ourselves.

I am thinking of the confidence of Gertrude Stein in the face of insurmountable male authority. How did she maintain such poise, such certainty in the face of historic sexism? I am thinking about Zora Neale Hurston who died penniless and was buried in an unmarked grave yet whose work stands tall now and is loved by contemporary women and men. I am thinking of Gwendolyn Brooks, here above whose work so eloquently addressed the concerns of women in organic free-flowing form. I am thinking about how so often such women are dismissed, discouraged and silenced, but these women would not be silent in the end because they actually wrote in the face of it.