EPISODE · Jan 2, 2020 · 17 MIN
Gwendolyn Brooks: The World Might Continue
from Writers Off the Page: From the TIFA Archives · host Toronto Public Library
Works by Gwendolyn BrooksThe Essential Gwendolyn BrooksSelected PoemsGwendolyn Brooks (Poetry Foundation article) Other Related Books or MaterialsGwendolyn BrooksConversations with Gwendolyn BrooksA Song for Gwendolyn BrooksThe Importance of Being Ordinary (New Republic article from July 2017)Jane Addams: Spirit in ActionOn Gwendolyn Brooks’ Birthday, a Statue of the Powerful Poet (Chicago Tribune article from June 2018)A Short History of South Africa 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 poems that explore in her unique way the painful historical and contemporary lives of Africans under Apartheid, suffragettes fighting for the rights of the poor, and even the tragic tale of a young girl murdered by her foster father in a fit of rage. In her booming cadence and never ambiguous phrasing, Brooks unpacks moments and images that signify the lives of the powerless and gives them voice in moving words that continue to haunt.
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Gwendolyn Brooks: The World Might Continue
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