CREATIVE PERSON, THE: GWENDOLYN BROOKS (TV)

Summary

One in this series of programs about creative individuals. This edition focuses on poet Gwendolyn Brooks. Brooks talks about her life, career, and work, and she reads several of her poems. The program also offers footage of the people she writes about -- poor, urban, black families and children. First, Brooks reads a poem and explains her reasons for writing it. She goes on to say, "My poems are about people. They are often about people who happen to have brown, black, or ivory faces, but aside from that, they are people like any other." She then discusses her classification as a "Negro poet" and her choice to write about the economically deprived. She says "Wealthy Negroes do not emphasize the features of colorfulness ... that are so apparent in the lives of the very poor." She recalls winning the Pulitzer Prize and reads her poems "Beverly Hills" and "The Ballad of Rudolph Reed." She also talks about her greatest satisfactions in this world, the process by which she writes, and the distinction between loneliness and aloneness.

Cataloging of this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 2000.

Details

• NETWORK: PBS WTTW Chicago, IL
• DATE: November 30, 1965
• RUNNING TIME: 0:28:56
• COLOR/B&W: B&W
• CATALOG ID: T:43418
• GENRE: Arts documentaries
• SUBJECT HEADING: Blacks - Social conditions; Poets; African-American Collection - News/Talk
• SERIES RUN: WTTW (Chicago, IL) - TV series
• COMMERCIALS: N/A

CREDITS

• Roger Smith … Producer
• Aida Aronoff … Director
• Gwendolyn Brooks