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Gwendolyn BrooksThe Ballad of Rudolph Reed
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1963A 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 Bean Eaters” by Gwendolyn Brooks (1960)
In another poem from The Bean Eaters, Brooks takes a subtle approach to representing working-class Black life. The subjects in this poem are an old couple who take comfort in each other as they eke out an existence in a poor apartment in Chicago. The poem connects thematically to “The Ballad of Rudolph Reed” in its examination of the reality of poverty and poor housing for Black people in Chicago during the 1950s. In the face of poverty and racism, family becomes an important source of resilience.
“The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till” by Gwendolyn Brooks (1960)
Also included in the same volume of poetry as “The Ballad of Rudolph Reed,” this poem contrasts sharply with “The Ballad of Rudolph Reed” in form and diction. Instead of relying on archaic language and regular rhyme and meter to represent racial violence, Brooks deconstructs the ballad by using stark, visual images and a realistic portrayal of a mother exhausted and horrified by the lynching of her son.
“We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks (1960)
Also included in The Bean Eaters, “We Real Cool” is a departure from many of Brooks’s poems because it has a strong rhythm that recalls the street games and sounds of young Black people of the inner city. The lines are short and choppy with irregular pauses (caesuras) in the lines and enjambment (continuation of a sentence across lines). The off-kilter nature of the poem is in contrast to the highly structured form in other poems. “We Real Cool” most captures the shift in Brooks’s aesthetic during the 1960s.
Further Literary Resources
“The Black Protest Ballad” by Gary Smith (1986)
Smith argues that Black poets such as Brooks continue to engage with the form of the ballad in works like “The Ballad of Rudolph Reed” because it is a perfect vehicle for representing the experience of ordinary Black people. Traditional ballads frequently emphasize irony or tragedy, and Black poets have repurposed the ballad to protest racial injustice.
“Poets Who Are Negroes” by Gwendolyn Brooks (1950)
Brooks articulates her vision for the Black poet. The Black poet has an advantage over other poets because Black experience is already exceptional in white America, she claims. Black poets shouldn’t rest on the importance of social justice to make their poems good. They should instead focus on craft. “The Ballad of Rudolph Reed” exemplifies just this approach. Brooks develops themes related to violence and racism, but she does so by using a carefully crafted work that has regular form and meter.
“Review of Report from Part One” by Toni Cade Bambara (1973)
Bambara’s review of Brooks’s autobiography captures how younger poets of the 1960s and 1970s saw Brooks and her body of work. Bambara paints Brooks as an old-fashioned but gifted poet who discovered a more modern approach to Black representation after she attended the Black Writers Conference at Fisk University in 1967. Thematically, Bambara sees Brooks’s work before then as being on a continuum with poets, especially her focus on representing the experience of working-class Black women, but out of step with Black revolution because of her insistence on using traditional forms.
Listen to Poem
First broadcast on WTTW, a Chicago public broadcasting station, this 1966 program includes Brooks discussing influences on her work and reading “Beverly Hills, Chicago” and “The Ballad of Rudolph Reed.”
Related Titles
By Gwendolyn Brooks
