19 pages • 38 minutes read
Speech to the Young: Speech to the Progress-Toward (Among them Nora and Henry III)
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Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
"Night” by Charles Churchill (1761)
Charles Churchill is an 18th-century British poet. He wrote many satires, including “Night.” As in Brooks’s poem, Churchill juxtaposes day with night and presents day as dull and night as thrilling. For Churchill, daytime people are “slaves to business” and “bodies without soul.” Meanwhile, the night denizens enjoy a “happier state” since they don’t have to face reality or, as Brooks might say, "Live in the along.” In Churchill's poem, the binary between day and night sharpens, and Churchill’s speaker is firmly on the side of night, which probably wouldn’t please Brooks’s speaker.
"a song in the front yard” by Gwendolyn Brooks (1945)
This poem appears in Brooks’s first collection of poems, A Street in Bronzeville. Here, the speaker grapples with the temptation of going into the backyard and playing with the supposedly bad children in the neighborhood. As in "Speech to the Young," the wild youth in “a song in the front yard” are alluring and linked to night. As the speaker admits, “And I’d like to be a bad woman, too, / And wear the brave stockings of night-black lace.” Furthermore, both poems employ similar literary devices, including alliteration and repetition.
"We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks (1960)
“We Real Cool” is Brooks’s most famous poem. This popular poem touches on many of the themes in “Speech to the Young.” Both poems deal with fast, flippant youth who prefer the night. In "We Real Cool," the young pool players like to "lurk late." However, in “We Real Cool,” the consequences are dire. Unable (or unwilling) to face day and sober up, the wayward pool players “die soon.” This poem, too, features ample alliteration and repetition.
Further Literary Resources
Maud Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks (1956)
Maud Martha is Gwendolyn Brooks’s only published novel. The story traces Maud’s life from childhood to adulthood or from day to night. As with the children in “Speech to the Young,” as a child, Maud loves the night when "everything is moody, odd, deliciously threatening, always hunched over and ready to close in on you but never doing so.” More so, Maud is attracted to excitement and drama as she dreams about living in New York City. As Maud grows up, she faces reality and figures out how to get along with the realities of life or "day.” In the novel, this is the “hard home-run” since it’s not an easy feat for Maud to maintain her composure in the face of minor and major injustices yet, somehow, she figures out how to preserve her dignity.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (1999)
This young adult novel follows a quiet boy, Charlie, through his first year of high school. The story shows that it’s possible to lead a quiet and rambunctious life, as Charlie is observant and introverted, but he also experiences a notable amount of excitement and trauma. Indeed, the novel highlights how adults can play a factor in the behaviors of young people, as adults, too, can be careless, unthinking, abusive, and harmful. Placed in conversation with "Speech to the Young," Chbosky's young-adult book seems to say that it's not so easy to categorize and label young people.
One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia (2010)
In Garcia's novel for young readers, Delphine and her two sisters spend a summer with their mom in Oakland. While there, they learn about the actions of the Black Panthers and why it's sometimes necessary to slap the sun and hush harmony—particularly if such harmony fosters racism. Given the context of Brooks's poem, Delphine and her sisters also discover that adults aren't always ready for day, since their mom doesn't seem overly interested in them and can't seem to face the fact that she's a mother to three daughters who’d like a closer relationship with her.
Listen to Poem
Listen to YouTuber Doris Andrade read Brooks’s poem, and follow along, too, as the video shows the poem’s text.
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By Gwendolyn Brooks
