"Maud Martha è nata nel 1917. È ancora viva": si apre così l'unico romanzo scritto dalla celebre poetessa Gwendolyn Brooks, la prima afroamericana a vincere il Premio Pulitzer. Un romanzo dalla struttura originalissima, che in 34 fulminanti capitoli racconta tutta la vita della protagonista attraverso un prisma di informazioni minime, rarefatte, poetiche. Maud Martha Brown è una ragazzina cresciuta nel South Side della Chicago degli anni Quaranta. Tra bettole fatiscenti e cortili incolti, sogna New York, un amore romantico, il futuro. Ammira i denti di leone, impara a bere il caffè, si innamora, arreda il suo angolo cottura, sventra un pollo, risparmia un topo, compra cappelli, cerca di vedersi bella, partorisce una bambina. Anche suo marito, che ha la pelle solo un po' più chiara, ha dei sogni: il Foxy Cat Club, le donne bianche, il mito della guerra. Ma i sogni di Maud Martha e di quelli come lei vengono, immancabilmente, messi alla prova da "brandelli di odio sgomento": una certa parola di una commessa, quella visita al cinema, la crudeltà di un Babbo Natale nei grandi magazzini. Una realtà inospitale, dura, né bianca né nera, ma fondamentalmente grigia: una realtà in cui, anche se la rassegnazione è la scelta più ovvia, c'è chi, come Maud Martha, trova ancora il modo di non arrendersi, pur di rendere luminosissimo quel grigio. Malgrado tutto. Scritto nel 1953 ma pubblicato ora per la prima volta in Italia, Maud Martha è un mosaico delicato e devastante, capace di trasmettere al lettore il ritratto straordinario di una vita ordinaria, vissuta con saggezza, umorismo, rabb

A collection of evocative poems from the first African-American winner of the Pulitzer Prize captures a compassionate and illuminating response to a world both special and universal. Original.

This classic picture book from Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks, paired with full-color illustrations by Caldecott Honor artist Faith Ringgold, explores the lives and dreams of the children who live together in an urban neighborhood. In 1956, Gwendolyn Brooks created thirty-four poems that celebrated the joy, beauty, imagination, and freedom of childhood. Bronzeville Boys and Girls features these timeless poems, which remind us that whether we live in the Bronzeville section of Chicago or any other neighborhood, childhood is universal in its richness of emotions and new experiences.

In 1956, Pulitzer Prize winner Gwendolyn Brooks created a collection of poems that celebrated the joy, beauty, imagination, and freedom of childhood. She reminded us that whether we live in the Bronzeville section of Chicago or any other neighborhood, childhood is universal in its richness of emotions and experiences. And now a brand-new generation of readers will savor Ms. Brooks's poems in this stunning reillustrated edition that features vibrant paintings by Caldecott Honor artist Faith Ringgold.

The classic volume by the distinguished modern poet, winner of the 1950 Pulitzer Prize, and recipient of the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, showcases an esteemed artist's technical mastery, her warm humanity, and her compassionate and illuminating response to a complex world.

A selection of the influential African-American poet's works reflects her modernist style and includes numerous definitive World War II poems as well as pieces about the social and political upheavals of the 1960s.

Conversations with Gwendolyn Brooks features sparkling interviews with one of America's most valued poets. Throughout this book, which spans three decades, Brooks (1917-2000) speaks with simplicity, depth, candor, and passion about the making of a poem and about the position of the poet in humane society.

A poem, she believed, comes from the heart. In each interview, she speaks from the heart and wins over the reader. The interviews took place in various settings-in radio recording studios and in university classrooms, in the coveted spotlight of a National Endowment for the Humanities celebration, and in the intimacy of her living room.

Regardless of place or audience, Brooks speaks with humility. She was the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry and to receive other coveted honors, and yet she sees herself as "an ordinary human being who is impelled to write poetry."

Brooks explains her experience within the creative process. She does not believe in a Muse. With gratitude to the Black Arts Movement, she celebrates both her blackness and the people in Bronzeville, the fictional community she created and whose lives she "put down" on paper.

Including interviews conducted by Studs Terkel and poet Haki Madhubuti, among others, Conversations with Gwendolyn Brooks underscores the legacy of one of the nation's most brilliant and humane poets.

Gloria Wade Gayles is Eminent Scholar's Chair in Independent Study, Scholarship, and Service at Spelman College. She is the author of several books-including "My Soul Is a Witness": African American Women's Spirituality and No Crystal Stair: Visions of Race and Gender in Black Women's Fiction.

Brimming over with the inspirational words and thoughts of some of our finest writers, Cries of the Spirit is a beautiful sourcebook of poetry and prose in praise of life and all that it entails. Here women's voices fill the age-old silence about matters central to their experience-from menstruation, sexual intimacy, and childbirth to caretaking, household rituals, and death. These writings represent a healing vision of the sacred that emerges from the particular consciousness of women-a vision that partakes of the world of earth and flesh.
With contributions by Maya Angelou, Julia Alvarez, Margaret Atwood, Hildegard of Bingen, Lucille Clifton, Annie Dillard, Joy Harjo, Erica Jong, Denise Levertov, Audre Lorde, Kathleen Norris, Marge Piercy, Starhawk, Eudora Welty, Alice Walker, and others.