Questions 1-10 refer to the following information.
Humanities—Passage A is a woman's tribute to her favorite poet, Gwendolyn Brooks. Passage B is a critic's response to one of Brooks' poems
PASSAGE A
The power of the poem, for me, is discovery.
An effective poem doesn't tell us much of anything;
it shows us one or more vivid images and
allows us to uncover something on our own—
05 something which contains shades of both the
author and the reader. In that way, the poem is
different for everyone who reads it.
I found Gwendolyn Brooks in December of
the millennial year, the day after she passed. I
10 saw the headline on my MSN homepage: "First
Black Author to Win Pulitzer Dies." There was
a link to a few of her poems at the top of the
page, and since I had an exam to study for, I
clicked on it as a justification for further pro-
15 crastination.
She struck me first as a bold combination of
academic and activist, an objective protester of
all that is unjust. Obsessed, she was, with perceptions
of beauty, questioning ugliness and
20 more often than not exposing the truly ugly.
Her work primarily focused on the Black urban
poor, but she was not in the business of telling,
even when her words were direct. Her poetics
were neither a lament nor a complaint nor a
25 plea; she never became didactic. Instead, it was
her skill for creation that set her apart.
Born in Kansas in 1917, but spending most
of her life in Chicago, Brooks attended a myriad
of white and black schools which worked to
30 shape her thoughts on race very early. By
thirteen she had published her first poem; by
sixteen she had published over seventy. And
as she developed, so did her poetry, becoming
more and more politically inclined. By the
35 time I had met her, she was the matter-of-fact
professor in glasses and a shapeless hat, an
image that complements the majority of her
biographies.
Through Brooks, I had hard conversation
40 after hard conversation. She seemed intensely
aware of racial and social injustice, but unwilling
to freely lend me her stance. Find it, she
would urge. What else, she would probe.
There's more, she would rage. Somehow, I am
45 a poet born through the interrupted thoughts
of a dead woman.
PASSAGE B
Gwendolyn Brooks' "The Lovers of the Poor"
is a satirical poem that points out the hypocrisy
within a group of white, wealthy females
50 who supposedly love to give to the poor. In
Brooks' representation, the rosy women work
at a soup kitchen not because they are particularly
passionate about helping the destitute
and despairing, but because they have been
55 trained to believe it is expected of them. Their
"scented bodies" and "lovely skirts" are in stark
contrast to what the speaker calls "the puzzled
wreckage/Of the middle passage." Intense
imagery depicts the crude reality of poverty
60 that surprises and then overwhelms the notso-
altruistic guild.
Upon the arrival of the Ladies' Betterment
League, an urban scene is depicted through
"diluted gold bars across the boulevard," bars
65 that the privileged are free to walk in and out
of, but which serve as a cage for others. The
"barbarously fair" love of the volunteers is symbolic
of their immediate contradiction: pale,
innocent, and clean in appearance, they are far
70 from it in nature. Soon, it becomes clear that
the women are utterly appalled by the smells
and sights of poverty. Before the conclusion
of the poem, the women make a mad dash to
escape their philanthropic duties—deciding
75 that it would be more fitting to send money
rather than to create change themselves, and
refusing even to breathe the same air as the
indigent.
Brooks' poetic contrast is far from merely
80 socio-economic. She uses language such as
"pink paint," "milky chill," and "rose-fingers" to
differentiate the elite from their counterparts.
For her, the class hierarchy is very much related
to racial hegemony. Race becomes a factor in
85 what is beautiful, and the author demands
reconsideration.
The reader is liable to feel disgust at the
disgust, repulse at the repulsion. Distasteful,
and even shameful, is the privilege that is only
90 willing to give on terms of convenience and
comfort. Yet, the speaker insists on the ugliness
of poverty, jumping from one vulgar image to
another. Ultimately, the author makes sure to
avoid the romanticizing of the poor that characterizes
95 the affluent women's expectations
in confronting the deprived. Interestingly, the
women sought a "worthy poor," apparently
worthy not by the extent of their need, but
the extent of their beauty. Brooks mocks the
100 naivety and arrogance of the well-to-do who
pat themselves on the back for their compassion,
but are all too often wrapped in a silk
blanket of pretention.