EP 3 Gwendolyn Brooks: Poet, People, and Politics | Women and Resistance 🌍

In this conversation, Aya and Adesoji delve into the life and work of Gwendolyn Brooks, exploring her identity as a Black woman and poet. The discussion highlights the influence of family, the importance of community, and the relevance of her poetry to the Black experience. It also addresses the evolution of Black consciousness and the need for collective action within the community. 

Through personal anecdotes and reflections, the speakers emphasise the significance of celebrating Black culture and the emotional weight of motherhood in Brooks' work. In this conversation, Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. discusses the profound impact of poetry on identity, particularly within the Black experience. She emphasises the importance of self-identification and the responsibility of writers to represent their communities authentically. 

The dialogue explores the significance of community, the value of recognition through awards, and the role of art as a form of resistance. 

Aya shared Ms Brooks' anecdotes that highlighted the author's commitment to nurturing the next generation of writers and the collective responsibility of the Black community to support one another.

Takeaways

*Gwendolyn Brooks preferred to be seen as an ordinary Black woman.
*Identity is multifaceted and varies by perspective.
*Critics often misinterpret the audience for Brooks' work.
*Brooks' Pulitzer Prize win was a significant moment for Black literature.
*Family support was crucial in Brooks' development as a writer.
*Awareness of Black history is essential for empowerment.
*The Black Arts Movement encouraged pride in Black identity.
*Collective action is essential for progress within the Black community.
*Poetry can resonate deeply with everyday experiences.
*Celebration of Black culture is vital for community strength. 
*The power of poetry transcends time and resonates with identity.
*Self-identification is crucial in understanding one's place in society.
*Writers have a responsibility to represent their communities authentically.
*Recognition through awards can inspire others, but should not define one's worth.
*Community engagement is essential for nurturing future generations of writers.
*Art serves as a form of protest and resistance against erasure.
*The Black experience is complex and varies across different eras and contexts.
*Personal experiences shape the lens through which writers create.
*Collective work is necessary for the survival and flourishing of the community.
*Partnership and support in personal relationships can enhance creative pursuits.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Gwendolyn Brooks
01:27 Exploring Identity and Self-Perception
04:07 Critique of Audience and Reception
06:51 The Role of Family in Shaping a Writer
09:09 Awareness and Consciousness in Black Identity
12:30 The Evolution of Black C

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Transcript

Adesoji Iginla (00:08.287)
Something went wrong. Was that?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (00:10.715)
says you're live.

Adesoji Iginla (00:13.263)
Yes, greetings, greetings, greetings and welcome to another episode of Women and Resistance. And tonight we're talking about

Sister Gwen Delane Brooks. Poet.

black woman as she would like to be described. But before we delve into who she is, I would introduce my sister from another mother, sister Aya Fubara NLEA Squire. How are you sister?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (00:54.651)
Good evening. Pleasure to be here again.

Adesoji Iginla (00:58.446)
Yes, the pleasure is all mine. yes, we're looking at the lives and times of Gwendolyn Brooks, poet extraordinaire. And she would rather like to be described as an ordinary black woman. I wonder why.

But do you?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:22.737)
I switched from YouTube TV to Filo and it's saving me six...

Adesoji Iginla (01:27.468)
So who is Gwendolyn Brooks?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:37.883)
What would be the best way to answer that question? You know, it's weird for someone to ask you who you are. Of course, I've lived with myself my whole life. I suppose that the answer to that question varies depending on the lens through which you're looking at me. So as a writer,

Who am I to my daughter, to my son? Who am I to my husband? Who am I to?

The Pulitzer Prize committee, who am I to?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (02:25.807)
the men and women in my writers workshops. Who am I to the young children that I love to teach? Who am I to the...

to our brothers and sisters who are locked behind bars because I love to go to the prisons and teach. Who am I? I am many things. What I do hope.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (02:52.205)
all of those different groups, those I've mentioned and those I haven't mentioned, will agree on. But yeah, you know, even then I don't think they will agree because I don't think that it is quite possible for white people to really understand us as black people and with our lived experiences. So I think that their response would be different. But at the core of all of that, I am a person who

Adesoji Iginla (03:09.432)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (03:19.203)
loves my community deeply. I'm a writer. I'm a writer. I'm a poet. I started writing as my mother says, you know, as young as six, I had a collection of poetry and some days I write a poem, some days two, some days more. That's what I do every day.

I love words and I love to write.

Adesoji Iginla (03:44.824)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (03:51.054)
So critics will often, I mean, critics unanimously agree that your works were specifically written for Black people. Would you consider a fair assessment of your work?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (04:07.725)
Well, depends on which critics you were talking to because the book that actually won the Pulitzer, people complained that it was written not for Black people. It was very, which, you know, even that criticism in it has some undertones of racism in the sense that

Adesoji Iginla (04:15.246)
Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (04:30.486)
is him.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (04:32.177)
you know, the idea was that it was a very technical book that I really focused on technique in terms of the outlining of the poetry, the poems in that book. And so the idea was that it had not been written for a Black audience. However, and that would be Annie Allen that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1950 when I was 32 years old. Yes.

but what's interesting about that is there are a subset, a strata, if you will, of Negroes, and I use that word intentionally, Black elites, I guess would be a more contemporary term, who would not read anything by a Black person until it got the stamp of approval of white people. And so I suppose

Adesoji Iginla (05:29.205)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (05:31.011)
that in becoming the first person of African descent to win a Pulitzer Prize for poetry that that that you know brought about a certain ascension if you will a certain improvement in my stature you know funny story depending on if you have a sense of humor or not when I got the call that I had won the Pulitzer Prize

I was in our little apartment and the lights were out. It was about dusk. When I mean the lights were out, I don't mean that we had not turned the lights on. I mean we were behind on our electricity bill and so we had no lights literally. And so by the next morning when

reporters and people started to show up and wanted to interview me and you know wanted to to come into the home and everything you know I didn't know quite how that was going to work but somebody paid the light bill I still have no idea who but such was such was that our existence you know that we were regular people pursuing a passion

Adesoji Iginla (06:38.84)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (06:51.857)
wasn't about making money, but it was a passion. I was compelled to write. I've always been compelled to write. Even before I knew that it could be a profession or a career, know, people say, was that your ambition? I don't know what you're talking about. I just had, I was compelled to write and I have to thank both my parents because they played an extraordinary role in...

in carving a childhood and in encouraging that in me. In cultivating that, in nourishing it, in creating an environment where, you know what my mother always used to say to me, and I'm gonna tell you about my parents. My mother, my mother was Kiziah Wims Brooks.

Zaya Wimsbrooks.

and my mother when I was a little girl would say to me, you would be the lady Paul Laurence Dunbar. And if you don't know that name, then don't just research and learn about me, which the best way really to learn about me is to sit with my work. And I have so much of it out there. But I still have my collection of Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Adesoji Iginla (07:58.903)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (08:15.479)
on poems that was given to me as a child. And I suppose that she meant well, and of course, that was something that evoked a certain sense in me. But of course, as an older woman, a more mature person at this point, the goal for any artist is not to be a replica of somebody else, but to become yourself. But still, that was an idea seed that was planted in me as a very, very young girl, and I am eternally grateful for that.

Adesoji Iginla (08:36.096)
Selfie.

Adesoji Iginla (08:46.754)
Hmm. In 1967, you described in very colorful terms. said, and I quote, I previously encountered some rather sleepy and unaware young people. What do you mean by that?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (09:09.837)
I'm not sure that I can pinpoint exactly what led to that comment, but I will say this much to you. Many of us.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (09:26.157)
at points in our lives have been those slippery and unaware people.

Adesoji Iginla (09:32.43)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (09:33.969)
as Black people in this country called the United States of America. When I was growing up, we really didn't have a concept of our history as African people or anything that we could embrace or celebrate as an African descendant people. We were quite unaware. We bought wholesale, many of us.

to this American idealism and American exceptionalism. And we just thought, if we worked hard enough and if we...

Adesoji Iginla (10:16.841)
bootstrap questions.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (10:16.889)
you know, shared, shared, you know, our humanity enough with, with white people that they will come to understand and, and, accept us, you know, this whole idea of equal rights. And my question is equal to what? Equal to white people who made them the standard.

Adesoji Iginla (10:21.368)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (10:45.167)
And why should that be what I perceive? So when we talk about slipping and unaware youth, don't you think you were once there? But what did you make of my comments?

Adesoji Iginla (10:58.668)
Okay, so my understanding of it was prior to that moment, 1967, one haven't gone through segregation, Jim Crow. The idea is you stay in your lane. You don't ask questions beyond what is in front of you. But

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (11:06.797)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (11:16.881)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (11:25.71)
you would say you encountered people who woke up something that was in you but you were not that aware that it was inbred. And the words you used was, I think they put it to you that black people, especially black poets, she'll write as blacks about blacks and address themselves as blacks.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (11:35.864)
yes. yes. yes. Yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (11:59.119)
I make that face only because this is such a tiresome topic. Even though I cannot escape.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (12:15.877)
Would I say the importance of still exploring it and giving people a chance to have that conversation and to think through it.

Adesoji Iginla (12:16.258)
blackness.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (12:30.075)
that, you know, as I reflect on it, you know, from when I made that statement to things that have happened later in life, there were also young people who brought to my awareness a different level of consciousness of who we are to be, who we are as black people, as African people. It's one of the reasons I don't like the term African American.

Adesoji Iginla (12:38.606)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (13:00.865)
But having said that, or should I say and having said that, it's interesting the cycles. And I say the cycles because some of the very people who helped to, during the Black Arts Movement, engender this sense of we're Black and we're proud. And we don't stay in any boxes that have been created for us, but we...

Adesoji Iginla (13:20.046)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (13:29.891)
fully represent our humanity and we embrace Blackness's beauty as power, as strength, as intellect, as everything that we are. Which by the way, you know, when you read my biography, you might not be able to tell over this platform, but I'm a very dark-skinned woman. I'm a very dark-skinned Black woman. And as a child, today it would be considered bullying. I suppose back then it would have been as well.

I was repeatedly told by my own that because I was not bright and light, I was basically to be discarded, to not be seen. know, the boys would pretty much just look through and past you. You were to be nothing. You could maybe elevate your status if you wore nice clothes. And if you could get a hot comb and straighten your hair and make it really bone straight.

And I had an aunt who sewed beautifully. She was the head sewing teacher for her school and she would send me clothes, sometimes five at a time. So I was always very well dressed. But imagine that the same students who ran after the bright and wealthier black students would deride me for being a darker skinned black

You know black girl who dared to dress well, but there's so many layers to what we go through but the point I was trying to make before I came to this point is It's amazing how some of the very people who Helped to awaken my awareness of Who I am

Adesoji Iginla (15:01.783)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (15:28.207)
as a black woman, as a black person first, and we can get more into that.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (15:36.529)
In the early 70s, we're also the same people who are now justifying, not operating in the sense of we, but in an individualistic sense. And I'll give you a very clear example. I was with Harper, the publisher, oh, I think over 30 years, I wanna say maybe 36, 33 to 36 years.

Adesoji Iginla (15:52.558)
you

Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (16:04.355)
And as I became more conscious, I was convinced of this fact that we build nothing as individuals, but that it takes the collective. And so if I were to write and if I were to live up to what I was saying and writing, then I must move to a black publisher. And I want to give just recognition and love to my dear, friend, Haki Maributi.

and I began to publish with Black publishers only. And at the same time, like I said, some of the people who had initially and seemingly embraced this concept of Black unity and us working together, were now moving in droves to the White publishers.

Adesoji Iginla (16:50.254)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (16:58.945)
slippery and unaware. I wonder, yes, not just youth. Sometimes we still all get sucked but not all. Sometimes we still get sucked back into this notion of

Adesoji Iginla (17:00.478)
On the way.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (17:16.356)
White is right.

We're looking for that validation and that is something as the older I got the more I was convicted and the more I actually made sure that all That my actions aligned with what I believed. Yes

Adesoji Iginla (17:36.014)
You mentioned Haki Mabute there, and you acknowledged the fact that he would often take a couple of you around to what was then known as Washington Park, which you renamed Malcolm X Park in Chicago, and to recite poems. But there was something about the poems you recited. You said, and I quote,

we would often go out and recite relevant poetry to the locals.

When you say relevant, are you saying you spoke to the people in the way they could understand, or you gave them a sense that poetry is actually a language of the, for want of a better word, the poor?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (18:28.091)
Well, let's see what your listeners think. I'm going to share a poem. It is a poem that evokes a lot of emotions, and particularly since Mother's Day was just celebrated, at least in this hemisphere, this might be one that I just want to alert your listeners ahead of time. This might be one that might touch some nerves.

Adesoji Iginla (18:55.374)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (18:56.281)
And you tell me after I read this poem what you think I meant by relevant, reading poems that were relevant to the people. The poem is titled The Mother.

Abortions will not let you forget.

You remember the children you got that you did not get. The damp small pulps with a little or with no hair. The singers and workers that never handled the air.

You will never neglect or beat them or silence or bite with a sweet. You will never wind up the sucking thumb or scuttle up ghosts that come. You will never leave them controlling your luscious sigh. Return for a snack of them with gobbling mother eye. I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed children. I have contracted.

I've eased my damn dears at the breast they could never suck. I have said, sweet, if I singed, if I seized your luck and your lives from your unfinished reach, if I stole your births and your names, your straight baby tears and your games, your stilted or lovely loves, your tumults, your marriages, aches and your deaths, if I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths,

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (20:32.517)
Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not deliberate, though why should I whine? Whine that the crime was other than mine? Since anyhow you are dead, or rather or instead you were never made. But that too I am afraid is faulty. what shall I say? How is the truth to be said? You were born.

You had body, you died. But on a lighter note, maybe, I'll share one called The Kitchenette Building. We are things of dry hours in the involuntary plan. Grade in and gray dream makes a giddy sound not strong like rent feeding a wife satisfying a man. But could a dream send up through onion fumes its white and violet

fights with fried potatoes and yesterday's garbage ripening in the hall? Flutter or sing an aria down these rooms? Even if we were willing to let it in, have time to warm it, keep it very clean, anticipate a message, let it begin? We wonder, but not well. Not for a minute. Since number five is out of the bathroom now.

We think of lukewarm water, hope to get in it. What do you think about the relevancy of my poems as we read them in what we now call Malcolm X Park?

Adesoji Iginla (22:11.606)
Okay, so the first one for me was...

silence grief.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (22:19.857)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (22:21.294)
because only a mother knows the pains of losing. The father would empathize, but only a mother truly knows. So that for me is Silence Grave. On the other one, it invokes a sense of...

Adesoji Iginla (22:45.372)
Joy but with

Adesoji Iginla (22:51.362)
Reflection.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (22:53.305)
and the realities of our daily lives.

Adesoji Iginla (22:55.412)
Yes, exactly. Because these are things that everyone, regardless of class, education, would experience. Not least motherhood.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (23:09.969)
That's true.

Adesoji Iginla (23:10.178)
So you cannot, I mean, that is where I get the sense when use the word relevant. Also, it means she is in tune with her people. That is you living within your people, understanding that every day you're very observant of what they go through in terms of everyday occurrence. So that way you're somewhat blessed because

The worst thing that can happen to an artist is to lose themselves and completely lose the audience. Then you might as well write for yourself.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (23:49.009)
Well, you know, I was born and I lived my whole life on the south side of Chicago. Yes, I got to travel to many other places and other countries. Really grateful for my trips to Africa and to Tanzania. I went to Ghana, I also went to Tanzania and in Tanzania had the great fortune of breaking bread.

Adesoji Iginla (23:58.083)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (24:17.061)
with none other than Ayikwe Amah. But I wanted to circle back. So if you read my biography, it tells you I was born in Topeka, Kansas. There's a reason. My mother's people, my mother's parents lived in Topeka, Kansas. Now my mother, before she got married, she was actually a school teacher there and then she moved to Chicago with my father. My father had always wanted to be a doctor.

Adesoji Iginla (24:19.63)
Hmm

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (24:48.497)
moved to Chicago and he started school, but his work hours and his school hours were in conflict. And you have put food on the table and the roof over your head. with my mother and myself and my brother, my father abandoned his formal studies, but he never stopped reading medical books.

Adesoji Iginla (24:56.696)
the

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (25:14.937)
And so for many an ailment illness in my household, didn't actually, we had a doctor, but we didn't actually have to go to the doctor. Because my father had so much knowledge, both of what he had gotten from books and also our traditions as black people. A little bomb here and a little south here and a little steaming here and a little herb there.

But I wanted to, because without my parents, there would not be me. And so I wanted to mention my parents name. My father was David Anderson Brooks. My father worked as a janitor, sometimes making only $25 an entire week with a whole family to take care of. When my parents got married,

Would you like to know what my father's wedding present was to his bride?

Adesoji Iginla (26:07.95)
the story.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (26:09.497)
He gave her a bookcase.

with a set of Harvard Classic books.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (26:20.945)
I had to be a writer.

Adesoji Iginla (26:24.014)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (26:24.417)
And my mother from a young age, she loved to read to us. And she would have us memorize these interpretations of works and we would recite them at church, you know, on special occasions. And so this love for words. And Christmas, which was, ooh, glorious.

I don't practice Christmas now, I don't celebrate Christmas now, but when I was a child, that's what we knew as black people, white Santa Claus and all. It was an amazing time of celebration. And let me tell you this, black people need a time to celebrate. You know what we need? We need a Black Liberation Day. We need a day where it's just, I suppose maybe you might call it Juneteenth, except even that the white people want to get in on. But...

Adesoji Iginla (27:06.915)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (27:18.309)
We need a day where we can just break free from the madness that sometimes is our lives in this country and where we can commune with all of our brothers and sisters across the globe. And it's a worldwide Black Liberation Day where we just celebrate. Cause we need that. We need that break. But let me get back to my story. So Christmas.

And would always have the Christmas tree. And we were not allowed to open our gifts on Christmas Eve. had to wait till Christmas Day. And you know what? Alongside the toys and, you know, train sets for my brother and dolls for me and all of that and clothes, there were always books.

Adesoji Iginla (28:09.314)
Hmm

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (28:10.629)
And at the end of the day, after the family and the guests had eaten to our fill and all of that, I would find a quiet place behind the Christmas tree and I would sit down and I would lose myself in my books. And that is because of my parents and the environment that they created for me. And I say that story, just to tell, share that story, not just to tell my story.

but to encourage parents. Particularly as I understand your present times. you have an obligation to shape your children, to determine what their environment is like and what and how it feeds them. And when you abandon your responsibility to any and everything else.

including all these devices that no longer require thoughts, that no longer require the activation of imagination. We are stunting ourselves. We are stunting ourselves. So I wrote, I started writing by about six, my mother says at seven, I had this collection. And guess what? By age 13,

Adesoji Iginla (29:17.678)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (29:40.783)
I was published in the American Childhood Magazine.

Adesoji Iginla (29:46.605)
What?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (29:47.153)
Now remember, I was born on June 7th, 1917. So let's think back to this time. At 13, we're talking about 1930. We're talking about the Depression. We're talking about abject poverty sweeping through the country, not even just for Black families. And yet my parents nurtured this dream.

Adesoji Iginla (30:00.222)
Russian. Yeah.

That's going to be our World War II.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (30:15.961)
As a matter of fact, sometimes I didn't even have to do all the chores that I typically would have had to because my parents nurtured and gave me that time to write. And yes, I wrote about what I saw and heard in the street. I wrote about what moved me. I still do that.

Adesoji Iginla (30:39.384)
There is enough to be said about how you represented the role of women within the black community. I mean, you've spoken about it in the poem you read, Mothers. But you also celebrated, how can I say it, the coolness of black people with a poem titled We Real Cool.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (31:07.983)
We real cool. You gonna read that? please do.

Adesoji Iginla (31:09.422)
If you don't mind, I can read it. And it goes thus, it goes, we real cool. We left school. We lock lids. We strike straights. We sing scene. We thin gene. We jazz June. We die soon.

Adesoji Iginla (31:35.768)
And that was Gwendolyn Brooks says, we're real cool. So.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (31:41.851)
Do you remember what year that was written? Well published.

Adesoji Iginla (31:45.656)
That was early 1934 if I'm not mistaken.

Adesoji Iginla (31:55.918)
Yeah, it was part of a...

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (31:56.816)
Well.

Adesoji Iginla (32:00.824)
part of a dorm of essays.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (32:06.403)
Let me say this about We Real Cool.

And let me say this about the power of poetry.

I could have been writing it right now in 2025.

Adesoji Iginla (32:20.974)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (32:27.889)
Couldn't I? Every, the thing, the idea of...

Adesoji Iginla (32:29.046)
Yeah, yep, yep, yep.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (32:36.801)
Young man. Young black man.

trying to make sense of who they are. And our swag, our cool mess, I ate tutu. And there are times when it's rooted in confidence and there are times when it's rooted in defense and other things, but it's still a poem.

Adesoji Iginla (32:44.216)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (32:48.672)
You

Adesoji Iginla (33:00.226)
defense.

Adesoji Iginla (33:03.788)
and

Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (33:06.501)
I think that's why it's one of my more famous poems, even though it's pretty simplistic, but it resonates with people. And we still see...

a great too many of our young people in a mindset.

that leads to death too soon in a world that actually doesn't want you to live.

Adesoji Iginla (33:42.994)
okay. It's often said that, and I'm going to describe you in the third person now. says, Gwendolyn Brooks doesn't just write poems. She wrote the truth from Annie Allen to in the Mecca. She gave voice to those who America tried to erase. I suppose I can caveat that with by saying America is still trying to erase them.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (33:56.651)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (34:12.674)
So what would you say to that assessment?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (34:22.211)
I am of my people.

I wish I could give you a straight answer on some of these things, but I have to say this.

There's something about the black experience in the United States of America in particular, and you know that I'm going to talk about my lived experience, but there may be people, black people in other parts of the world who might be able to relate to this or draw some parallels to their existence as well.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (34:57.137)
You know, if I had died in the 1950s, I would have died a Negro.

Adesoji Iginla (35:05.838)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (35:06.22)
My parents were colored people.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (35:13.52)
By the late 60s and early 70s, some of us were embracing black.

And then eventually we saw this movement towards Afro-American and African-American.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (35:33.54)
end

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (35:38.619)
There's a confusion that is created in the people when you're not even clear on who you are and what you're called.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (35:55.857)
And it took me a while to clarify that for myself. But once I dialed in on my African-ness, embracing the very thing that as I pointed out earlier, some misguided Black people, the features and the hue would discard because they were more interested in the proximity to whiteness.

Adesoji Iginla (36:24.11)
to witness.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (36:25.627)
It allowed me to get much clearer on.

how I write.

the lens through which I choose to interpret and share my thoughts. I'll give you an example. My husband and I were in Ghana and we saw this young boy running. And my God, this young Ghanaian boy. And he just...

He just embodied joy. I mean, was just, you know, we talk about babies, this was just like watching joy in motion. And my husband and I stayed up till four a.m. that morning arguing because for him, he would have written about a boy with joy.

Adesoji Iginla (37:21.869)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (37:23.547)
But for me in my writing, it was important to me to center that this boy was Ghanaian, this boy was African, this boy was a black boy. And I suppose that some critics might say, are you not allowing this social construct of race to impact and shade everything? And here's the question that I pose sometimes to even my white friends. I say, listen.

If you see me coming from afar, what is the first thing you see? And they'll say, well, I see my friend. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I said, if you see me coming from afar, you can't yet tell it's me. What is the first thing your mind records? And that is as a result of the conditioning here in this country. But I would say with the, with technology increasingly around the world, we see the use of bleaching cream and

Straightened hair and all of that all over the world. Okay, so I Said would you not first say? that's a person in the gold. That's a black person. Would you not say that and Then maybe as I get closer, so it's a black woman maybe big based on how undressed I understand that people now dress differently, but you know and and then only when I got closer Would you be able to recognize and say?

Adesoji Iginla (38:40.973)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (38:51.593)
that's Gwendolyn Brooks, my friend. And so when you talk about erasure and when you talk about all the ways that they basically have in the past and again are trying, we always have tried to write us out of history and science and humanity, period. I think that, not I think, I know, I believe that.

I as a black woman, as a writer, as an artist, have an obligation, a duty.

Adesoji Iginla (39:30.456)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (39:31.793)
to write us and our humanity, the fullness of it, in all of the ways it shows up beyond class and age and gender and all of that. I have a responsibility to, in my work, evoke that, to show that, to celebrate that, to...

Adesoji Iginla (39:55.872)
maintain that in our consciousness.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (39:57.231)
Bring that to the light. We must not say, so you know when I won the Pulitzer Prize, they'll be like, well, you know, she's a writer who happens to be black. I'm a black woman. I'm a black woman. I am an African woman. I am a black person. I like black because wherever you are in the world as a black person, are together. We should be one. We should work together. I'm not a writer who happens to be black.

Adesoji Iginla (40:24.59)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (40:25.807)
I'm a black person and I write.

Adesoji Iginla (40:28.91)
So question from one of our audience is Peggy Parks Miller. And the question is, you once said, or she wants to know what you meant when you said, we are each other's harvest.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (40:47.091)
how I wish I could have a conversation with Peggy. Peggy, thank you so much and thank you for reading my work. You know, many of us poets, you know, our work languages in notebooks that sometimes never get published. And even when they get published, you know, sometimes they never read. We are each other's harvest. I'm going to invite your listeners.

If we can all just pause for about 30 seconds and just say those words in your mind and tell me where you feel it in your body. We are each other's harvest.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (41:52.217)
And I would welcome you to put your response, you can, where others maybe might see it, because it'll be interesting to see what the responses are. You know, I love to teach writing. I love to engage with our people. And so, yes, talking with you is great, would really be wonderful to get the ideas and thoughts of everybody else who might be watching and be part of this. We are each other's harvest.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (42:22.657)
I am the harvest of my parents and my great-great-great-grandparents and my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents.

They are my harvest as I pull on their stories and their lives and their legacy and the things that they left behind in so many different ways for me. As a collective, we've always won or lost as a collective.

We are each other's harvest. When I said pause and say those words, I'll tell you where I felt them. Today and where I felt them then when I first wrote that. Felt it right here in my heart area. It makes me want to gather us up together. What do you do to get a harvest? You do the work.

Adesoji Iginla (43:23.051)
Good.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (43:25.711)
You sacrifice, you protect, you stake, you trim, you prune, you fertilize, you water, you move plants around to where they can get what they need. You do all of that for the harvest. And so if we understand that we are each other's harvest, that we lose or win together, we live or die together, then it's also a call.

to nurture.

Adesoji Iginla (44:00.142)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (44:01.499)
to nurture so that we can have a harvest and that I can harvest on my own. We, the collective, we are each other. This is going to take collective work. Not a, I'm a special Negro and the first and the only and the last.

Adesoji Iginla (44:18.03)
you

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (44:21.829)
And that's one of the reasons why, my goodness, throughout my career, like I said, I lived my entire life on the South side of Chicago. I made money and I put that money back into my community. Just like someone held writing workshops that I attended when I was a little girl. I love to go into the schools. I love to engage with the young people. I created...

I'm a writing award for young people to encourage them. And I share this not to say, look at me and all that I've done. I'm sure if you read anything about me, you know that I am not the attention seeking type, if you will. I don't shy away from it, but I'm not running after the spotlight. But I share that story to encourage us all.

Adesoji Iginla (45:05.772)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (45:20.571)
to look and see what we are doing.

to ensure a harvest in one another and particularly our young people. If the arts are under assault in the schools, if our history is not being taught, if they're banning our books, I just read about a man in Ohio who went to a book, a library, and I'm not sure how you're allowed to check out hundred books at the same time, but he checked out a hundred books on Jewish history.

African American history and LGBTQIA studies and he burnt them all.

So if we are each other's harvest, what are the things that right now as you're listening to my voice being sparked in you, things that you can do, reading circles, personal libraries that are not public libraries that we can build up, pop-up libraries. I mean, you may be able to put one of those little things on your own property where anyone going by those lending tree, they can...

pick up a book or they can put back a book. How? Maybe it's music. You my mother was a fantastic piano player, pianist. And so I want you to, as you learn more about me, which I hope encourages you to go read my poems, because there's something beautiful about sitting with poetry.

Adesoji Iginla (46:40.782)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (47:03.095)
and hearing the rhythm, the cadence of the words and picturing in your mind's eye what the writer has written with words. The question is, what are you going to do? And I'll tell you, I know you didn't ask me this question, but I have to say this because as you go and read my work, as you read Lawrence Dombars work, Paul Lawrence Dombars.

I want to, you may have never heard of this man. His name is, and I always kind of get it wrong.

P protect.

and he has some people always would ask me who's your favorite poet and you know they'd compared me to Walt Whitman and all these other people and it was Okot Pipote.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (48:01.413)
you should go and get his poetry and sit with his poetry. Let me tell you, some of you might need to revive your romantic lives. There's nothing as quite so beautiful as right before you lay your head down reading a beautiful piece of poetry. And so I encourage you to...

Adesoji Iginla (48:04.087)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (48:14.978)
the

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (48:31.259)
to invest in some poetry books and maybe try your hand at it as well.

Adesoji Iginla (48:38.796)
Yes, speaking of poetry.

Adesoji Iginla (48:45.196)
Initially you said, in the beginning you said, you don't really have fancy for the white gaze and that you always prioritize community recognition over institutional acceptance.

And so you gave us this quote. You said, I am not a scholar. I am just a writer who loves to write and will always write. So the question would be, so what does it mean to be honored by a system you critique?

Adesoji Iginla (49:23.564)
with the Pulitzer Prize, obviously. That's what I meant.

You

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (49:31.877)
Like I said, I was...

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (49:38.361)
in every sense of the word, minding my business, in a home with no electricity, clearly live in a very humble life, when I was made aware that I had been awarded the Pulitzer Prize. And to that extent, I would say, are people of excellence. While I do not need or look to

Adesoji Iginla (49:47.342)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (50:07.087)
the validation of whiteness to know that I'm good. I don't begrudge anyone of any Hue race background acknowledging that I'm good. I want to say this for the young people who are listening, that it wasn't an overnight success and it wasn't about chasing success either.

Adesoji Iginla (50:35.566)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (50:36.035)
It was about discipline and it was about being true to my passion. I wrote because I was compelled to write. Everything else that happened came out of the commitment and dedication I had towards my writing. And so,

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (50:58.115)
I've clearly done the work and put out...

You work that was worthy of the recognition and so yes, of course It should be recognized the issue for me is not chasing after it or not feeling that that is what defines you or what? Differentiates whether your work is worthy or not whether your work is Of a certain quality or not whether or not I ever got a Pulitzer Prize and I won many other kinds of prizes

is it's that dedication that commitment and understanding, That with this gift that I had this gift that I was also honing on a daily basis. Yes, I welcomed opportunities to share that with more people in the world because at the time when I first started writing in terms of black writers or poets, you know

certainly of course Paul Lawrence Dunbar and you had others who came before me, but many of us in our Black communities were unaware. probably, and not probably, I know we had many amazing poets who just wrote in, know, left it under their mattress or their bed or whatever and eventually over time it just disappeared with the wind. And so if

Adesoji Iginla (52:10.286)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (52:30.381)
my earning a Pulitzer if any of the accolades I have been afforded allow other people other young people other black people to recognize I can do this too and it inspires them yes let the awards come

Adesoji Iginla (52:50.442)
Okay. I mean, it was important that I pose that question because what's the word they often use now? When you do get the prices, you're considered a sellout. So I just wanted to have to let you have your say with regards to the fact that you

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (53:11.825)
That is not a label that will stick to me. Like I said, I actually left my white publishers after I got the Pulitzer Prize at a time when other people were running in the opposite direction. So no, not at all.

Adesoji Iginla (53:26.762)
Okay. Okay. So, one final question.

wasn't a... it's not a question, it's a statement you made. But I just want you to sort of give life to it. And the statement goes, resistance doesn't always roar. Sometimes it whispers in verse. It walks through Brownsville and it listens before it speaks.

can repeat it.

Resistance doesn't always roar. Sometimes it whispers in verse. It walks through Brownsville. And it listens before it speaks.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (54:16.599)
know, people would often ask me where I get my inspiration and I'll say with my people. You know, I used to love to take public transportation because you get to see the people at a whole different level than if you're just in a personal car or a jet plane or something of that nature. But you know, I love to observe my people and I live amongst my people.

what I would say, I'm gonna read something that I wrote.

My aim in my next future is to write poems that will somehow successfully call all Black people. Black people in taverns, Black people in alleys, Black people in gutters, schools, offices, factories, prisons, the consulate.

I wish to reach black people in pulpits, black people in mines, on farms, on thrones. Not always to teach. I shall wish often to entertain, to illumine. My newish voice will not be an imitation of the contemporary young black voice, which I so admire.

but an extending adaptation.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (55:54.651)
that those words speak to, those weren't actually my words, but those words capture what I was about.

Adesoji Iginla (55:54.936)
What?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (56:11.799)
recognizing that we need the we. Recognizing that we don't get to our full potential if we don't take care of us. Recognizing that nobody else is coming to save us. We must do that work for ourselves. And figuring out how to use my voice, my pen to get to call

to get that point across to as many of us as possible so that we might do the work that is required of us at this time.

You know, when I passed away.

I was 83 years old. It was December 3rd, 2000. My daughter did an incredible thing for me, my daughter, Nora Blakely. and did I not mention my husband? I am going to come back to that. I have to mention my husband. But Nora.

and some other family and friends read some, they read poetry to me in my dying hours. And right before I took my last breath, she put a pen in my hand.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (57:42.957)
I died with a pen in my hands. But I also want to say this for people who have dreams and goals and want to...

Adesoji Iginla (57:45.699)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (57:57.723)
want to make something of their lives. Who you partner with is really important. You know, my husband said to me,

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (58:14.725)
I will never prioritize housework over your writing.

And so in my marriage, even though we did have a little separation for about two years, we separated.

Adesoji Iginla (58:30.477)
Yep.

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (58:35.493)
But my husband respected my work, honored.

my gift and my discipline and in our marriage, in our family.

did not make me have to feel guilty about choosing to do my work, perhaps because he too was a writer. But I'm eternally grateful that I did not have to, within my home, have that struggle with him. So I had parents who encouraged my writing, and I had a husband who encouraged my writing. That was a beautiful gift.

Adesoji Iginla (59:16.45)
Yeah, thank you very much for sharing your parts, your life with us. And I must say to our audience, if you do appreciate this, like, share, subscribe. And next week, we'll be looking at another writer, but this one with a different, completely different upbringing, life.

Her name is Bessie Heard. Again, I repeat, Bessie Heard. So until next week, when we come to you with another episode of Women and Resistance.

Thank you, Miss Gwendolyn Brooks. Any final words?

Aya Fubara Eneli, Esq. (01:00:11.825)
Poetry is life distilled. Poetry is resistance. Art is protest. Lean in.

Adesoji Iginla (01:00:25.998)
There is nothing more to add other than to say good night and see you next week. See you next week people. Good night and God bless.