Critical Insights: Gwendolyn Brooks

The four original essays in this set explore how the Harlem Renaissance and the civil rights movement influenced Brooks' work, with close readings of selections from A Street in Bronzeville, Annie Allen, The Bean Eaters, In the Mecca, Riot, and Family Pictures. Essays also provide a survey of the major pieces of Brooks criticism and Brooks' novel Maud Martha, and offer a close reading of "The Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock" to discuss how Brooks' adept use of poetic devices such as rhythm, meter, rhyme, and enjambment helps create the meaning of the poem.