Black love poetry includes many famous African-American poets
No compilation of black love poetry will be complete without reference to Gwendoline Brooks. I have some of her poetry here and a few more from another famous writer, Marie Evans:
Gwendoline Brooks (1917-2000) had a long and prolific career. Brought up in the Chicago South side in a respectable but economically deprived family, her parents nutured her love for books and reading.
At thirteen her poem Eventide was published in a popular children's magazine and she was praised by both James Weldon Johnson and Langston Hughes.
Her first major publication was of nineteen poems in the mid 1940's, and by the time she published her second volume of poems Annie Allen in 1949 she had established her reputation as an important American literary voice.
Brooks was early in her career, a writer who objectively chronicled the often bitter lives of her people. In later years, after attending a two day workshop in 1967 where she met younger radical black poets like Amiri Baraka (LeRoy Jones) she underwent a sea change of awareness and transformed into a protest poet. Her 1960 work, The Bean Eaters epitomised this.
Gwendoline Brooks lectured widely in many American Universities and won many prestigious awards: She was the first black woman writer to win the Pullitzer Prize in 1950, and she succeeded Carl Sandburg as Poet Laurete of Illinois in 1969 till her death in 2000 amongst many other recognitions.
Here are two examples of her black love poetry:
THE OLD-MARRIEDS
But in the crowding darkness not a word
did they say.
Though the pretty-coated birds had piped so
lightly all the day.
And he had seen the lovers in the little side
streets.
And she had heard the morning stories clogged
with sweets.
It was quite a time for loving. It was midnight. It
was May.
But in the crowding darknesss not a word did
they say.
Black Love
Black love, provide the adequate electric
for what is lapsed and lenient in us now.
Rouse us from blur, Call us.
Call adequately the postponed corner
brother.
And call our man in the pin-stripe suiting and
restore
him to his abler logic; to his people.
Call to the shattered sister and repair her
in her difficult hour, narrow her fever.
Call to the Elders--
our customary grace and further sun
loved in the Long-ago, loathed in the Lately;
a luxury of languish and of rust.
Appraise, assess our Workers in the
Wild, lest they
descend to malformation and to undertow.
Black love, define and escort our young, be
means and
redemption, discipline.
Mari Evans(b.1923) is an African-American writer and educator who has won many awards for her poetry. Among her several volumes of poetry are I Am A Black Woman and Nightstar.
Here are two examples of her black love poetry:
Where Have You Gone
Where have you gone
with your confident
walk with
your crooked smile
why did you leave
me
when you took your
laughter
and departed
are you aware that
with you
went the sun
all light
and what few stars
there were?
where have you gone
with your confident
walk your
crooked smile the
rent money
in one pocket and
my heart
in another ...
Celebration (1993)
I will bring you a whole person
and you will bring me a whole person
and we will have us tiwce as much
of love and everything
I be bringing a whole heart
and while it do have nicks and
dents and scars,
that oly make me lay it down
more careful-like
An; you be bringing a whole heart
a little chipped and rusty an'
sometime skip a beat but
still an' all you bringing polish too
and look like you intend
to make it shine
we be brinigng, each of us
the music of ourselves to wrap
the other in
Forgiving clarities
Soft as a choir's last
lingering note our
personal blend
I will be bringing you someone whole
and you will be bringing me someone whole
and we be twice as strong
and we be twice as true
and we will have twice as much
of love
and everything
There are more examples of black love poetry from famous writers. let us next look at Alice Walker and Jean Toomer:
Famous Black Love Poetry 2
African 1
If you like Black Love Poetry and would like to receive more information directly in your inbox, subscribe to my Love Poetry of The World newsletter
Return from Black Love Poetry to Love Poetry of The World