The List

(page 8 of 10)

EVERYDAY BEAUTY

Maud Martha (1953), by Gwendolyn Brooks

"What she wanted was to donate to the world a good Maud Martha. That was the offering, the bit of art, that could not come from any other. She would polish and hone that."

The story: An economical portrayal of the life of one African American woman who finds poetry in the commonplace, from gutting a chicken to savoring hot chocolate.

Why the book resonates: "I saw my own neighborhood in reading the book," says Sandra Cisneros, the Chicago-born author of The House on Mango Street and a devotee of Brooks. "It doesn't matter what color you are." Maud Martha's kitchenette apartment building in Bronzeville exemplifies both the melting pot that was—and is—Chicago and the lingering geographic segregation that still persists in the city. A quiet reflection on the routine and the private, Brooks's only novel also illustrates the inner dramas and the big events of a woman's life: girlhood, courtship, marriage, pregnancy. "It looks like a gentle, fragile, little book, but it is much more," Cisneros says.

The author (1917-2000): Born in Topeka, Kansas; moved to Chicago soon after, where she lived until her death. Authored more than 20 books of poetry. In 1950, became the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize. Appointed Illinois's poet laureate in 1968. 
—E. P.

 
 

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