It is perhaps not surprising then that the poems I respond to are her most Stevensonian, although I think she (Gwen) had a better ear than Wallace. Brooks mainly writes portrait poems and social poems which are not usually my bag. I am grateful though for this uncomfortable yoking of Brooks and Stevens as I probably would not have read Brooks’ poetry had Stevens not inadvertently turned me onto it. How could it not be? Racism is a psychological defence mechanism, and there is not a human mind on this planet that is not defending itself. Whatever the nature of Stevens’ racism, I have no doubt it was present to some degree. I have yet to find a definitive account of that quote or how it was delivered, but such is the nature of hearsay. This was the book that won her the Pulitzer in 1950 where Wallace Stevens allegedly whispered that infamous racist comment, a comment that has followed the two of them down through the years in various forms. It appears in her second book of poetry Annie Allen, published in 1949 when Brooks was 32 years old.

Gwendolyn Brook’s “truth” is an early poem. What if we wake one shimmering morning to