18 pages • 36 minutes read
Gwendolyn BrooksBoy Breaking Glass
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1987A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
“The Children of the Poor” by Gwendolyn Brooks (1949)
In this early poem about childhood and poverty, Brooks considers the dilemma of the Black parent who loves their child but also has to prepare that child for the reality of poverty and racism. Brooks foregrounds the voice of the mother in this poem and does so in the highly structured form of the sonnet (a 14-line poem that comprises an eight-line stanza, a six-line stanza, and regular rhyme and meter). The contrast between form and approach to content in this poem and “Boy Breaking Glass” shows the evolution of Brooks’s craft.
“We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks (1963)
“We Real Cool” is another poem about Black, urban youth—seven teenagers who play pool and openly proclaim their rebellion. This poem centers the voice of Black youth. These Black teens have each other, unlike the boy in “Boy Breaking Glass,” showing the importance of community as a source of resilience for Black youth.
“The Near-Johannesburg Boy” by Gwendolyn Brooks (1986)
Inspired by the children who participated in protests during the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, Brooks wrote a poem that is all voice, specifically the voice of a child who is ready to die (or live) for the sake of freedom. Where “Boy Breaking Glass” has a grim tone because of the boy’s belief that he will always remain invisible, the tone in “The Near-Johannesburg Boy” is one of hope and determination. In this poem, the Black child has found his voice and is an active participant in Black liberation.
Further Literary Resources
“From Bronzeville to the Mecca and After: Gwendolyn Brooks and the Location of Black Identity” by Jeni Rinner (2015)
Rinner argues that the publication of In the Mecca marked a shift in Brooks’s representation of Black people as members of “the individuated black community” in places like Bronzeville to Black people “called to a black nationalist identity” that was less place-specific (151). In her analysis of “Boy Breaking Glass,” Rinner argues that the poem “insists that the displaced and nameless boy belongs to the black nation,” his isolation notwithstanding (165). Rinner’s article provides additional context for understanding Brooks’s work in the context of Black nationalism.
Negro Digest edited by John H. Johnson (1967)
Brooks originally published “Boy Breaking Glass” in Negro Digest, a Black-owned and -edited publication that was an important market for writers of the Black Arts Movement. Brooks’s poem appears in the June 1967 issue of the magazine alongside political commentary from around the globe. In that context, a poem about a Black boy breaking a glass window assumes political dimensions that may be less obvious if the poem is read in isolation.
Report from Part One by Gwendolyn Brooks (1972)
In the first volume of her memoirs, Brooks recounts her life, including her education, early literary influences, and life in Chicago as a working writer and mother. In the first part of the memoir, she includes an account of the impact of the Second Black Writer’s Conference at Fisk on her work. In the “Marginalia” section, she also includes early notes and an outline of In the Mecca, the collection that includes “Boy Breaking Glass.” The details in the memoir provide detailed literary and cultural context for the poem.
Listen to Poem
Benjamin Collopy, creator of this 2020 episode of the Words That Burn podcast, reads Brooks’s poem, which he describes as one “brimming with necessary destructive energy.”
Related Titles
By Gwendolyn Brooks
