Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brook’s “The Boy Died in My Alley” is a poem written in response to her previous writing, “of De Witt Williams on his way to Lincoln Cemetery”. Both poems are talking about a young black boy who is dead and two varying perspectives of him.

The first poem, “of De Witt Williams on his way to Lincoln Cemetery” does not go into much detail about the boy himself. The boy is in a casket and is being taken through the town where he lived, most likely for funeral purposes. The poem talks about the places in the town where the boy had experiences. Seeing things like the “Pool Hall” and the “Dance Halls” (lines 7 and 15). The poem has a perspective of someone who is detached and insensitive to the situation in some lines. Saying that the boy was “nothing but a / plain black boy” (lines 3-4). This could almost be from the perspective of what a white person at the time would see the death as. Saying that it did not matter because it was “just a black boy”, nothing special. I can see this as political because it calls attention to race and how people can dehumanize someone so quickly because of that. The boy and his death does not matter or has less importance because he is black.

 The second poem, “The Boy Died in My Alley” could be about the boy from the previous poem and how he died. This poem is more focused on the perspective of someone in the community, heard the gunshot that killed the boy. The speaker in this poem talks about the community more when she mentions the gunshots. She did not know that the boy had died, she had only heard the gunshot. But she had not thought anything about the gunshot because she hears them all the time. This shows the danger and harsh community that the speaker and the boy lived in. Shots being fired frequently to the point where people who heard them were unfazed. The speaker admits that she did know the boy but had seen him frequently getting into bad situations. She admits that she did nothing to intervene and shows guilt because of that. This second poem sheds a light on a dark and very realistic situation that many African Americans have lived through. Hard and dangerous communities where gunshots and killed children are not really a surprise.

I enjoyed both poems and enjoyed them even more when they were put together side by side. Her writing grows between the two and it is obvious. I liked seeing a topical perspective as well as an in-depth perspective. I really enjoyed the second poem, “The Boy Died in My Alley” because of its raw and honest voice. The line “Policeman said, the next morning, / apparently died alone” stuck with me (lines 3-4). It is a situation that is very real and it really hit hard for me to try to contemplate other situations like this. This is a poem, but it reflects the reality shown in so many areas and lives across the world. I think Brooks did a great job of making it hit home and hit deep without needing to relate. I have been lucky enough to grow up in a community where this is not my life, but her writing did not stop my inexperienced mind from understanding and contemplating the truth and harsh reality behind her words.