Summary Of My Dreams Must Wait Till After Hell By Gwendolyn Brooks

Dear Hoover High Student,

When I chose my black poet, though it might have been rather unusual, I picked my poet at random. I did not want to do someone who probably everyone has heard of or studied in the past. So, I decided to spread my wings a bit and chose a poet by the name of Gwendolyn Brooks. First of all, I am quite envious of her name. It has such a spiffy ring to it. I digress, the poem I chose by Brooks is entitled, “My Dreams, My Works, Must Wait Till After Hell.” It goes as follows:
I hold my honey and I store my bread
In little jars and cabinets of my will.
I label clearly, and each latch and lid
I bid, Be firm till I return from hell.
I am very hungry. I am incomplete.
And none can tell when I may dine again.
No man can give me any word but Wait,
The puny light. I keep eyes pointed in;
Hoping that, when the devil days of my hurt
Drag out to their last dregs and I resume
On such legs as are left me, in such heart
As I can manage, remember to go home,
My taste will not have turned insensitive
To honey and bread old purity could love.

Gwendolyn Brooks was born in June of 1917 in

Topeka, Kansas. She was an African American woman in America at that time she had many barriers to overcome. When she was young, her family moved to Chicago, Illinois where she grew up. Throughout her high school career, she experienced pretty much every kind of school that existed back then race-wise. She attended an all-white school, transferred to an all-black school and then graduated from an integrated high school. She went further and earned her degree from a junior college. With these four school environments, she witnessed and became part of the racial dynamics in Chicago. It is undeniable that these dynamics found their way into her writing. She actually did not pursue a four-year degree because she was confident she wanted to be a writer and found that a degree was not necessary. If that is not impressive I do not know what is. I cannot set up my dentist appointments without my mother, let alone decide my future with such confidence. Furthermore, she stated, “I am not a scholar, I’m just a writer who loves to write and will always write.” In her writing, she wanted to use her creativity to overpower the racist barrier that surrounded her. Her greatest struggle in life was the struggle of becoming an African American poet in a country that was plagued with white oppression.
Now for the poem I chose.

According to Brooks, “My Dreams” can be categorized as a lyrical poem, with a first person narration. What I took from the poem was that Brooks reflects on the experience gained by the African American people being subjected to two cultures. The first is her African roots and culture, and the other is the American culture where she and the rest of the black community are alienated. She seeks to emphasize the suffering of her and her people due to the loss of their identity and heritage. And because of this loss, African Americans desired to return to their root culture. The poem therefore outlines the narrator’s journey of hardship to the root culture in the matter of calling her present situation “hell.” The narrator’s tone of despair shows her struggle to survive in a world that persistently holds her

back.
She further hints at her roots with the mentioning of “bread and honey.” The bread and honey are metaphors for her desires that will satisfy her hunger to reunite with her roots. The idea of roots in the poem does not seem to physically represent her homeland. I feel it is a place where the narrator feels comfort, a sense of identity, and a place to feel free and powerful. She eagerly searches and waits anxiously to regain a sense of her individuality that society has thus stripped from her. In addition, another can interpret that she has a hunger to write with her own identity and not conform to what oppressors want her to do. Given the time period, social restrictions could have suppressed her desires. Yet, as the reader, we see how much she has preserved and endured to grow as a human being despite being hit with adversity. Lastly, it is clearly evident that her idea of home celebrates black culture. Her hunger and incompleteness in “hell” are connected with the flavor and outlook of the future, and a positive one at that. And you can see this when she juxtaposes the ideas with hell and devil days with home, honey, and bread.
That is my analysis of the poem but I hope you find your own spin and interpretation for it. That is the beauty of poetry; there is no wrong answer. Anyway, I hope you are having a good October!

Sincerely,
Alex Mohr