A Song in the Front Yard by Gwendolyn Brooks - Book Report/Review Example

A Song in the Front Yard by Gwendolyn Brooks Order No. 343166 December ‘09 A Song in the Front Yard by Gwendolyn Brooks A Song in the Front Yard by Gwendolyn Brooks is a well-known poem which explores urban life. Gwendolyn Brooks is the only black to win the Pulitzer Prize. She has written hundreds of poems and has published more than twenty books. She was known for using poetry as a means to increase the awareness of black culture in America. Brooks wrote many poems that described the miserable conditions of the poor, about racial inequality, struggles of black women and drug abuse by the black community. According to Cynthia H. Roberts (1991), “Gwendolyn Brooks is to some extent a forerunner of the modern black poets. She deals openly with disillusionment and rejection of the white society, pride of the blacks and appreciation for the poor of the ghetto”. A Song in the Front Yard is about a girl who wants to do things she wants to do and not follow rules laid down by society. She wants to be adventurous and experience a different kind of life. It is also about the same girl remembering after she becomes a woman, how her mother had kept her away from the back yard. Now after growing up she wants to “peek” into the life in the back yard. Here the poet wants us to know that a time always comes when we want to know what we have missed in life. This poem was one of Brooks’ early poems, yet her African heritage and her identity with it comes through. The lines such as “I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life” … “I want to go in the back yard now / And maybe down the alley" (Brooks, 1963),  in the poem symbolically, represent what the poet wants to convey. The "front yard” here represents the pretense of imitating other culture while the "back yard" is an indication of a return to one’s own heritage.  From the poem it is clear that living in the "front yard" is synonymous with living a good life and that "back yard" is synonymous to living a bad life. The girl in the poem thinks living a "bad" life is more fun, in spite of what other people’s, especially her mother’ views on this. Here she says: “My mother sneers, but I say its fine ………/ My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae/Will grow up to be a bad woman/But I say its fine./ Honest I do./And Id like to be a bad woman too” (Brooks).These lines demonstrate that the girl is ready to accept the consequences of being a bad woman. In the poem, the young girl feels trapped as her mother tries to shield her from what is there in the "back yard". The poem concluding lines “...brave stockings of night-black lace..." and "...paint on my face..." point to the fact that her mother is protecting her from sexuality. When Brooks says, "A girl gets sick of a rose” she shows the girls frustration in having to act as Katherine Jones (2007) says, “ feminine, demure, and untainted, like a rose” as her mother wants her to act. The rose here represents the appropriate things a girl should do in society. The girl on the contrary wants to be adventurous and follow the girls disapproved by her mother. She longs for the freedom present in their lifestyle. Here the girl says, "How they dont have to go in at quarter to nine” and "They have some wonderful fun." And that she would "...like to be a bad woman, too." (Brooks). This and the references to things such as stockings and make-up, all add to what the author wants us to see in the back yard and it is evident here that one of this is female sexuality. The message Brooks wants to convey through this poem is a simple message: If you want to lead a life of your choice, a "deviant" lifestyle as the girl in the poem wants to; you must be ready to face the consequences, both positive and negative. The front yard that is always pretty and orderly indicates that the girl has everything she could ask for her. But the author wants us to know that she is not happy with her life and this is evident in the words “a girl gets sick of a rose” (Brooks). The girl is bored of her life and wants to see what is there in the backyard which is rough and not pretty and orderly like the front yard. The back yard for the poet also represents the life of black, children without families and who are living on charity. However the girl feels this is an advantage and that they are lucky that they can play all the time and go to bed when they want. The writer wants to drive home the message while the poor may not have all the riches and privileges of the upper classes they have more fun than the rich.. A rich man is forever chained to manners and social etiquettes while the poor are free to live as they please. When one reads the poems of Gwendolyn Brooks it looks like she wants to convey many ideas through her poems. Her poems sometimes reflect the harsh and oppressive conditions of the society blacks live in. Many like Henry L. Gates and Nellie Y. McKay have said that her poems are simply about "the stuff of everyday life", especially within the black society. However one feels that there is also something else she wants to convey about the African Americans. She has analyzed the difficult choices African Americans have to make in their lives and also the consequences of these choices. In this poem she wants us to know that in society women even today are restricted by traditions that have been in existence for many centuries now. The girl in the poem is tired of her good girl image and the fact that she is restricted to the front yard, and has to come inside at eight forty-five. She does not mind being labelled a ‘bad woman’ as she is too young to comprehend the social consequence of such a label. She looks only at the freedom this stands for. The girl yearning for freedom represents the yearnings of young African American girls in the America of the 1940s. When the girl’s mother sneers at her for desiring to play in the back yard, the girls still wants to play. Here Tim Price says, “Perhaps this young white girl was representative of the attitude many white people took when the time came to integrate and throw aside the racial prejudices of their parents”. The structure of Brooks poem contributes much to the power of the poem. Brooks can be considered as one of the most innovative poets in the United States. According to Danielle Chapman, “This is a great poem to teach. It has vivid, concrete images and a superbly controlled voice, and it manages to question an entire moral-societal order in language that is completely understandable to your average eighth-grader”. In this poem she follows the traditional European style. However she has successfully managed to convey African American experience through this traditional European poetry style. This poem succeeds in reaching out to so many people because it is powerful and it derives its power from its content, its rhythm, and its simplicity. The poet is able to create a scene in our minds compete with feelings and to do this uses imagery, symbols and metaphors in abundance. According to Francis Pierce (1987), “Through multi-sensory imagery and rhyme she compares her life in the front yard to the excitement of the street and the alley”. The rose in “gets sick of a rose” is symbolic of natural beauty, purity and love. It also has a religious symbolism that of the Virgin Mary. The back yard is a metaphor for the rough and wild, a place where the girl thinks “wonderful things” and “wonderful fun” happens. In one place the girl says, “And I’d like to be a bad woman, too,/And wear the brave stockings of the night-black lace/And strut down the streets with paint on my face” (brooks). Here words such as stockings, lace and paint stand for female sexuality. The theme emphasized here is repression of female sexuality which is still prevalent in many societies. Right from the first stanza she uses symbolism to convey her thoughts. Symbols of the front yard and the back yard are used frequently. The girl has "stayed in the front yard all life" yet she desires "to peek at the back/Where its rough and untended and hungry weed grows." (Brooks) The back yard is depicted as rough indicating activities that are not typical to law abiding citizens. The yards here represent different kinds of people. Again the two yards have different plants, again representing different things. The rose in the front yard requires much nurturing and represents goodness whereas the weeds grow anywhere where there is soil and represents all that is not good. The weeds in the backyard are described as "hungry,” denoting that the back yard is thriving and more alive than the front yard. The rose which is well tended and in public view since it is in the front alludes to pretence and propriety people have to maintain in society. There is irony too in the poem when we consider that the author of the poem is African American. The speaker, which is the girl in the poem, is a white girl curious to know what other kind of life is there other than her own and wants to be a part of the black culture. A white girl wanting to be a black is the irony. The poem has lines of different lengths and rhythms and the rhyme scheme is quite novel following an abcc pattern with the last stanza having an aabb pattern. Critics while discussing the literary quality of Brooks poetry have all agreed on one point that Brooks has always remained true to "the sounds, sights and flavors of the Black community." ( Lerone Bent) .As D. H. Melhem (1988) says , she "enriches both black and white cultures by revealing essential life, its universal identities, and the challenge it poses to a society beset with corruption and decay." This is what she has done in this poem. In the final analysis the poem seems to be about the appeal of a different kind of life for the girl. The poet superimposes the turmoil of life over a young urban girl’s romanticized view of life. The title itself exhibits this as it suggests it is a song about wanted to look at the back yard while in the front yard. The poet is able to make the reader get a true sense of the girl’s yearning for a challenging life. However Brooks here craftily superimposes a warning against this desire for life of the back yard, which in the poem represents the "bad" life. From the poem we know that the girl has not been in the back yard as the song is from the front yard .The back yard is described as "rough" and "untended" which means that it is not good and uncared for. In the end the poem is both a song about the beauty of life as well as the realities of a wild life. References 1. Bennett Lerone, Quote retrieved from http://www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/bhm/bio/brooks_g.htm on 5/12/09 2. Brooks Gwendolyn (1963), A Song in the Front Yard, http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poems/poem.html?id=172082 3. Chapman Danielle (2006), Five of her classic poems reconsidered, http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/article.html?id=178704 4. Gates Henry and Nellie Y. McKay , Quote Retrieved from http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/aaw_literature/30145 on 5/12/09 5. Jones Katherine (2007), Examining Past and Current Views of Femininity Through Poetry,www.associatedcontent.com/.../examining_past_and_current_views_of.html 6. Melhem D.H.(1988), Gwendolyn Brooks: Poetry and the Heroic Voice, The University Press of Kentucky (July 1, 1988) 7. Pierce Francis (1987), Understanding and Appreciating Poetry: Afro-Americans and Their Poetry, http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1987/3/87.03.04.x.html 8. Price Tim, Symbolism in the poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks, http://www.helium.com/items/308909-symbolism-in-the-poetry-of-gwendolyn-brooks 9. Roberts Cynthia (1991), In Search of Afro-American Poets in Modern Times, http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1991/4/91.04.03.x.html      Read More