EPISODE · Dec 5, 2019 · 19 MIN
Gwendolyn Brooks: Poems That (Don't) Cough Lightly
from Writers Off the Page: From the TIFA Archives · host Toronto Public Library
Works by Gwendolyn BrooksThe Essential Gwendolyn BrooksSelected PoemsA Street in BronzevilleBronzeville Boys and Girls (children’s picture book by Brooks) Other Related Books or MaterialsA Surprised Queenhood in the Black Sun: the Life & Legacy of Gwendolyn BrooksConversations with Gwendolyn BrooksGwendolyn Books (Poetry Foundation article and poetry)Remembering the Great Poet, Gwendolyn Brooks, at 100 (NPR audio news story)A Song for Gwendolyn Brooks by Alice Faye Duncan About the HostNovelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.Music is by YukaFrom the ArchivesWriters Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.Audio and transcript used with the permission of the Brooks Estate.
What this episode covers
Pulitzer prize-winning poet, Gwendolyn Brooks, reads three of her poems live on stage, entitled, “Winnie,” about the life and legacy of Winnie Mandela, wife of Nelson Mandela, “The Children of the Poor,” and “The Ballad of Pearl May Lee,” poems written a generation ago or longer but which still have amazingly contemporary resonance.
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Gwendolyn Brooks: Poems That (Don't) Cough Lightly
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