(This poem regards the killing of a white man during the 1968 Chicago riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King.)
Riot
Gwendolyn Brooks
A riot is the language of the unheard.
—martin luther king
John Cabot,* out of Wilma,* once a Wycliffe, *
all whitebluerose below his golden hair,
wrapped richly in right linen and right wool,
almost forgot his Jaguar and Lake Bluff*;
almost forgot Grandtully (which is The
Best Thing That Ever Happened To Scotch); almost
forgot the sculpture at the Richard Gray*
and Distelheim*; the kidney pie at Maxim’s*,
the Grenadine de Boeuf at Maison Henri.*
Because the Negroes were coming down the street.
Because the Poor were sweaty and unpretty
(not like Two Dainty Negroes in Winnetka*)
and they were coming toward him in rough ranks.
In seas. In windsweep. They were black and loud.
And not detainable. And not discreet.
Gross. Gross. “Que tu es grossier!”* John Cabot
itched instantly beneath the nourished white
that told his story of glory to the World.
“Don’t let It touch me! the blackness! Lord!” he whispered
to any handy angel in the sky.
But, in a thrilling announcement, on It drove
and breathed on him: and touched him. In that breath
the fume of pig foot, chitterling and cheap chili,
malign, mocked John. And, in terrific touch, old
averted doubt jerked forward decently,
cried, “Cabot! John! You are a desperate man,
and the desperate die expensively today.”
John Cabot went down in the smoke and fire
and broken glass and blood, and he cried “Lord!
Forgive these nigguhs that know not what they do.”*
*John Cabot: John Cabot (originally Giovanni Caboto) was a 15th-century explorer who commanded the English expedition that landed in North America in 1497.
* Wilma (aka,Willmette), Lake Bluff, Winnetka are all wealthy white suburbs of Chicago, situated on the North Shore of Lake Michigan.
* Wycliffe: 14th-century theologian who produced a handwritten translation of the Bible. After his death he was declared a heretic by the Catholic Church for his belief that all should have equal access to the biblical text. His remains were exhumed, burned, and cast away, thereby martyring him.
* Richard Gray and Distelheim are art galleries in Chicago.
*Maxim’s: Chicago restaurant modeled after the famous Maxim’s de Paris.
*Grenadine de Boeuf: a beef dish served at French restaurants.
*Maison Henri: French Restaurant in Chicago.
*”Que tu es grossier!: I think you are fat.
*Echoes Jesus Christ’s words as he is crucified: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (King James Bible)
About the Poet
Gwendolyn Brooks is one of the most highly regarded, highly influential, and widely read poets of 20th-century American poetry. She was a much-honored poet, even in her lifetime, with the distinction of being the first black author to win the Pulitzer Prize. She also was poetry consultant to the Library of Congress—the first black woman to hold that position—and poet laureate of the State of Illinois. Many of Brooks’s works display a political consciousness, especially those from the 1960s and later, with several of her poems reflecting the civil rights activism of that period. Her body of work gave her, according to critic George E. Kent, “a unique position in American letters. Not only has she combined a strong commitment to racial identity and equality with a mastery of poetic techniques, but she has also managed to bridge the gap between the academic poets of her generation in the 1940s and the young black militant writers of the 1960s.”
Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas, but her family moved to Chicago when she was young. Her father was a janitor who had hoped to become a doctor; her mother was a schoolteacher and classically trained pianist. They were supportive of their daughter’s passion for reading and writing. Brooks was 13 when her first published poem, “Eventide,” appeared inAmerican Childhood;by the time she was 17 she was publishing poems frequently in theChicago Defender,a newspaper serving Chicago’s black population. After such formative experiences as attending junior college and working for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, she developed her craft in poetry workshops and began writing the poems, focusing on urban blacks, that would be published in her first collection,A Street in Bronzeville.
Brooks’s later work took a far more political stance. Just as her first poems reflected the mood of their era, her later works mirrored their age by displaying whatNational Observercontributor Bruce Cook termed “an intense awareness of the problems of color and justice.” Toni Cade Bambara reported in theNew York Times Book Reviewthat at the age of 50 “something happened to Brooks, a something most certainly in evidence inIn the Meccaand subsequent works—a new movement and energy, intensity, richness, power of statement and a new stripped lean, compressed style. A change of style prompted by a change of mind.” “Though some of her work in the early 1960s had a terse, abbreviated style, her conversion to direct political expression happened rapidly after a gathering of black writers at Fisk University in 1967,” Jacqueline Trescott reported in theWashington Post.Brooks herself noted that the poets there were committed to writing as blacks, about blacks, and for a black audience. If many of her earlier poems had fulfilled this aim, it was not due to conscious intent, she said; but from this time forward, Brooks thought of herself as an African determined not to compromise social comment for the sake of technical proficiency.