Black Poetry Tuesdays (July 11, 2023 Edition): "Primer for Blacks” by Gwendolyn Brooks

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The week’s poem is a piece from Gwendolyn Brooks, a Black female writer, and poet who was the first Black poet to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1950. Gwendolyn was also the first Black woman to hold the role of Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, a position now referred to as the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry. She served as the Illinois poet laureate for 32 years.

Gwendolyn’s work is well-known for being steeped in her experiences and identities as a Black woman in the United States, with a unique ability to be militant and steadfast in her use of language and imagery while drawing in white folx who were fearful of the writers, poets, and artists that were a part of her generation of Black voices post-Harlem Renaissance.

The following piece is called “Primer for Blacks.” It is an interesting study on Blackness as a singular identity but also a view into how even if you have an ounce of Afro-Carribean blood in your DNA, you are still Black in the eyes of whiteness. It’s a great piece about reconciling one’s identities at the intersection of Blackness as well as anti-black self-hatred.

Primer for Blacks

Blackness

is a title,

is a preoccupation,

is a commitment Blacks

are to comprehend—

and in which you are

to perceive your Glory.

The conscious shout

of all that is white is

“It’s Great to be white.”

The conscious shout

of the slack in Black is

‘It’s Great to be white.’

Thus all that is white

has white strength and yours.

 

The word Black

has geographic power,

pulls everybody in:

Blacks here—

Blacks there—

Blacks wherever they may be.

And remember, you Blacks, what they told you—

remember your Education:

“one Drop—one Drop

maketh a brand new Black.”

        Oh mighty Drop.

______And because they have given us kindly

so many more of our people

 

Blackness

stretches over the land.

Blackness—

the Black of it,

the rust-red of it,

the milk and cream of it,

the tan and yellow-tan of it,

the deep-brown middle-brown high-brown of it,

the “olive” and ochre of it—

Blackness

marches on.

 

The huge, the pungent object of our prime out-ride

is to Comprehend,

to salute and to Love the fact that we are Black,

which is our “ultimate Reality,”

which is the lone ground

from which our meaningful metamorphosis,

from which our prosperous staccato,

group or individual, can rise.

 

Self-shriveled Blacks.

Begin with gaunt and marvelous concession:

YOU are our costume and our fundamental bone.

 

     All of you—

     you COLORED ones,

     you NEGRO ones,

those of you who proudly cry

     “I’m half INDian”—

     those of you who proudly screech

     “I’VE got the blood of George WASHington in MY veins”

     ALL of you—

           you proper Blacks,

     you half-Blacks,

     you wish-I-weren’t Blacks,

     Niggeroes and Niggerenes.

 

     You.

You can learn more about Gwendolyn here.