Guild Literary Complex


June 7, 2023 marked the 10th anniversary of BrooksDay, the Guild Literary Complex’s annual celebration of Gwendolyn Brooks. This year, we joined forces with the Poetry Foundation to additionally celebrate the launch of One Poem, One Chicago, which started with a reissue of Brooks’ 1987 poetry collection Blacks (Third World Press).

You can view the original event post here.


Event Program | 10th Annual BrooksDay

Brooks Readings:

The Mother (p. 22) Andrea Change

At the Regal (p. 161) Sandra Jackson Opoku

Old (p. 39, Seasons) Val Gray Ward

The Sundays of Satin Leg Smith (p. 42) Heather Ireland Robinson

Paul Robeson (p. 496) and The Near-Johannesburg Boy (p. 507) Marvin Tate

To those of My sisters who Kept their Naturals (p. 459) Tarnynon Onumonu

To an old black woman, homeless and indistinct (p. 32 In Montgomery) Ed Robeson

The Ballad of Rudolf Reed (p. 376) and The Second Sermon on the Warpland (p. 451) Reg Gibbons

Boy Breaking Glass (p 438) Mario smith (host)

An Aspect of Love (p. 479) Sylvia Ewing

The Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock (P. 346) Samuel Lewis

Children of the Poor (en espanol) (p. 115) Eduardo Arocho

The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmitt Till (p. 340) and Ms. Small (p. 341) Keli Stewart

Kojo: I am Black (p. 42 SEASONs) avery r young (Chicago Poet Laureate)

The Bean Eaters (p. 330) Toni Asante Lightfoot (Host)

We Real Cool (from No Blue Memories – Manual Cinema)

To Black Women (p. 502) and Memorial to Ed Bland (p. 92) Atena O. Danner

Appendix to the Anniad (p. 110 – 112) Mojdeh Stoakley

The life of Lincoln West (p. 482) Timothy David Rey

Third Sermon on the Warpland (p. 472) Nile Lansana

Aurora (p. 56, Seasons) Aurora Performance Group