In the Mecca

by Gwendolyn Brooks

In The Mecca a long poem about a mother searching for her lost child in a Chicago apartment building. In The Mecca was nominated for the National Book Award for poetry.

Genres: Poetry, African American, Classics, Race, American, Read For School, History

64 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Annie Allen and one of the most celebrated Black poets. She also served as consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress—the first Black woman to hold that position. She was the poet laureate for the state of Illinois for over thirty years, a National Women’s Hall of Fame inductee, and the recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her works include We Are Shining, Bronzeville Boys and Girls, A Street in Bronzeville, In the Mecca, The Bean Eaters, and Maud Martha.

Reviews

[Brina · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first week of January marks Gwendolyn Brooks' birthday. I thought that would be as good of an occasion as any to kick off my personal Read Chicago challenge. Brooks was the second poet laureate of Illinois, following the illustrious Carl Sandburg. She held this position from 1964 until her death. Brooks was the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer in poetry for Annie Allen in 1950, which I read a year ago, followed by her only novel Maud Martha in 1954. In the Mecca is the first volume of poetry that Brooks wrote in ten years following the publication of Maud Martha. This slim volume shows the author's maturity and speaks to the changing African American experience.

The first half of this volume is the title poem In the Mecca. Taking place at the Mecca housing building for which the poem gets its name, Brooks focuses on three generations of African Americans who live there. It is the 1960s on the south side of Chicago on the eve of the civil rights act. African Americans even in the north are subject to forms of Jim Crow laws and another Mecca, that of the lights of downtown Chicago, seem a world away to the inhabitants of the Mecca apartment building. Yet, the denizens of Chicago's south side persevere. Their block is their world and within the safe haven of their personal apartments, these citizens are free of the dangers brought about by Jim Crow.

Brooks focal point is Mrs Sallie Smith to whom everyone in the neighborhood brings their issues. Sallie entertains male and female guests including Alfred and Hyena, a sister who comes to share the latest gossip. The women discuss the merits of dressing like whites, with Sallie being one of the first in the neighborhood to lighten her hair. Brooks also has the women reflecting on their children and the future they may have and contrasts this with Sallie's grandmother who remembers slavery all too well. These three generations also speak to changing times, yet, as much as things change, the more they remain the same. When Sallie's daughter Pepita goes missing, she fears the worst and has the entire neighborhood look for her. Brooks' prose is impeccable and the search for Pepita reads like a literary fiction novel. As a result, I was treated to a true master.

The second half of the volume pays homage to fallen African American leaders including Medgar Evers and Malcolm X. Brooks lauds both of these leaders as trailblazers. When referring to Evers, she writes of a man "whose height his fear improved he arranged to fear no further. The raw intoxicated time was time for better birth or a final death. Malcolm X she calls an "original, ragged-round, rich-robust," a true leader. She states that "he opened us- who was a key, who was a man." It feels as though with these two poems that Brooks is encouraging African Americans to take up the mantra in the cause for equal rights. She follows u these homages with Gang Girls and The Sermon of the Warpland which both speak of the 1960s African American experience and are a poignant ending the volume.

In the Mecca would have been a telling addition to a Black History Month yet I enjoyed reading Brooks' poetry to get my Read Chicago challenge off the ground. Where this challenge takes remains to be seen, but with the numerous books written about the city, the possibilities are endless. I was especially pleased with the poem The Chicago Picasso which reflects on the beauty of a sculpture I have visited many times en route to see the lions outside of the Art Institute. Gwendolyn Brooks is a true treasure and, I hope to continue the tradition of reading her poetry around her birthday in the years to come.

4.5 stars

[Hollis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume is largely dedicated to its titular long-poem, "In the Mecca," which narrates the conflicts of living mobilized and held by Black tenants of the Mecca Flats, a Chicago housing complex that initially reserved itself for white tenants prior to its eventual status as a resevoir for middle class Black families. It was flattened in 1952, making room for Illinois Institute of Tech's S.R. Crown Hall. The institute saw additional Black housing complexes in the surrounding vicinity crushed in the 90s. I wonder how many Black students pass through its doors today. But I digress. Brook's text begins with a long narrative poem about the tower, its residents, and the disappearance of a little girl. "In the Mecca" folds in references to root doctors and African Third World revolutionaries, offering brief sketches to describe members of the tower community. It's a little like Gloria Naylor’s Women of Brewster Place, but we're dealing with stanzas rather than chapters.

While the above piece makes up the bulk of the text, we also have some shorter lyrics supporting a second section titled, simply enough, "After Mecca." Some of my favorites include “To a Winter Squirrel,” “Boy Breaking Glass” (enshrining destruction as a creative act, shading towards radical theories of violence as actualized being-in-the-world), and “The Blackstone Rangers,” which is probably the most well known here. One of its early lines, “Their country is a Nation on no map” speaks volumes to the Mecca Flats' fate, as well as the continuous destruction of Black communities, which would take shape in more and less overtly deliberate forms across the 20th century. Despite the callous reality of Brooks' lyrics (which hold just as strong in our present compared to hers), the final poem, “The Second Sermon on the Warpland” resounds in its call to recognize the beauty and being of Black struggle, Black life, persisting against the reflexive impulses of capital.

[Raul]

This is the urgency: Live!
and have your blooming in the noise of the whirlwind.

Not my favourite Gwendolyn Brooks collection of poetry, but that quoted poem!

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book as background for understanding an artwork called Prairie by Victor Burgin. He references Gwendolyn Brooks and her 'In the Mecca' poem whilst talking about the old Mecca apartment building which was demolished and the modernist building S.R.Crown Hall now in its place. After doing a bit of research I found not only could I understand artwork but also the references in the poem. There is an incredible amount to unpack from this poem. Even if you don't look at the history before reading it is a brilliant and provides snapshots into the lives of people living in a building that slowly deteriorated into slums.

[RK Byers · Rating 5 out of 5]

she has such a deft touch, it's hard to be critical. it'd be like looking for flaws in Coltrane.

[Jade Wootton · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The Second Sermon on the Warpland” is truly one of the best poems I’ve ever read.

[Zack]

couldn't get into the long first poem (i suspect there were a bunch of references that i just didn't get) but loved the second half of the book filled with shorter poems. looking forward to checking out more brooks; i especially loved the poem "TO A WINTER SQUIRREL"

[Cassandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not appreciate this perhaps as much as it deserved.

[Sean Blevins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brooks is a poet of sound. Her poems plead to be read aloud.
Read to hear; hear to see.

[Caitlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the fourth book I've read for my Modern and Contemporary Poetry class, and like every other book I've read for this class, I struggled with it. Interestingly enough though, I didn't dislike it like the other ones I had to read. Sure, I still struggled with understanding most of what I read, but the parts I did understand were really good.

The main poem this book gets its title from is rather long, but I did enjoy reading about all the different residents in the Mecca apartment building. Brooks actually drew from personal experience when writing this poem, and all the insight was really meaningful.

I think that's what I liked most about this collection of poetry, all the themes are super important to think about. They still apply today.

She never went to kindergarten.
She never learned that black is not beloved.

There are some really bleak parts in this book, but they are all important topics for discussion.

Even though the language is super weird at some times, it is also super beautiful at others.

Observe the tall cold of a Flower
which is as innocent and as guilty,
as meaningful and as meaningless as any
other flower in the western field.

This is not a collection of poetry that I will return to over and over again and preach its greatness, but I do believe that a lot of important and insightful things can be learned by simply giving this book a shot.

This is the urgency: Live!
and have your blooming in the noise of the whirlwind.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Going back to read some Chicago authors, this is the third Brooks book I have read in the last few weeks, and I have her novel waiting for me at the library. Brooks here is on the cusp of her radicalization, and I would be interested in reading some of her later work, to see how it changed. The most important piece here is, of course, the longish (@ 27 pp) title poem. While her themes have most often been the Chicago Af Am community, her style is more akin to T S Eliot, or Hart Crane, or Wallace Stevens. It is not a "casual" presentation that opens up to an easy reading. The poem deserves, and requires, multiple readings in order to understand the characters. She builds characters, and often one needs to add pieces together from throughout the poem in order to understand them, and their actions/ideas. If I have one complaint, it is that she did not share with us the mother's reaction upon hearing of her lost daughter's fate.
The volume is completed by a short selection of her more recent (at the time), shorter, poems. "Second Sermon on the Warpland" was particularly good.
Again, her poetry is highly polished, technical and personal - often not obvious to the reader what she is writing about, explaining, presenting (and again, reminds me much of Hart Crane). Her work is somewhat stunning and original (and unique within the canon of Af Am Literature), but spend some time on it, and it will be worth your while.

[Jerome Berglund · Rating 5 out of 5]

Something to behold in its awful grandeur, particularly the first epic poem (perhaps Brooks' most daring accomplishment) which showcases her affinity with and uncontested place as Baudelaire's Western heir apparent. Indeed, it's doubtful another American author will ever manage so effective and provocative a successor to Flowers of Evil, depicting in an unflinching yet artful manner any location and its inhabitants quite this effectually. Truly a consequential and riveting accomplishment I can only hope enough people get exposed to; if you care to experience this poet in top form and are daring enough to brave something with shifting perspective and unconventional formatting, you will not regret investigating this. Reminiscent of the song 'Gassenhauer' by Carl Orff. Iconic.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

"one reason cats are happier than people is that they have no newspapers"

"Mecca" is a sketch of a rural town through a close and powerful meditation on its inhabitants

"After Mecca" is a sketch of people and groups from or influential in Chicago in the sixties and the Black Nationalist movement of the time.

Both are powerful, though the sheer momentum of "Mecca" made a more compelling read.

[Kenn Hunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the Mecca is perhaps Brooks’ most significant work—a poem that operates as historical mysticism, epic, and time vault, simultaneously spotlighting and pedestalizing Midwestern Blackness.

This epic is in direct conversation with the lineage of Black theory, thought, and grief, as well as the vast continuum of literature.

[Kate Savage · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why did I never know about Gwendolyn Brooks?

[Amanda Perry · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars - I connected more with her first book of poetry, but that's a subjective viewpoint. This is a masterpiece, and I love it's two-part construction.

[Aubree Chavez-Gregory · Rating 4 out of 5]

read for engl 579. very enjoyable. demonstrates race and class in an energized way.

[Claire Fairtlough · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finished this in one sitting and it was lovely and a punch in the gut just like every other one of Gwendolyn Brooks’s poems

[Ellie Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

read during lunch break and. yeah

a hymn, a snare, and an exceeding sun .

[Clove · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strongly recommend pairing with Parable of the Talents

“Conduct your blooming in the noise and whip of the whirlwind.”

[Jonathan Eisen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haven't stopped thinking about this book since I last read it almost a month ago. Such evocative use of the "epic" genre by a true master at the height of her powers. Brooks weaves her "hero" through the rooms and thus lives of the people of the Mecca apartments in Chicago not too long before they'd be shut down, but the glimpse we get of everyone is in turn both barely a glimpse and feels like everything they are holding on to. Her characters' stories are distinct but blend together in uncanny ways, just enough for you to never feel truly grounded.

[Patricia N. McLaughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Her clear mind is the extract
of massive literatures, of lores,
transactions of old ocean; suffrages.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks, “In the Mecca”