Welcome to Litsy!

We first meet Maud Martha when she‘s seven and follow her over the next decades, she marries, has a baby. The book is told short episodes before we move on to the next one. To me this book was too short and to episodic to stay with me, but I liked it when I read it.

How did I get this far along in life and not have discovered Maud Martha until now?

Brooks‘ amazing craft allows readers to feel Maud‘s internal and external worlds. It‘s more akin to being Maud rather than reading Maud.

All the praise! 💜 I‘ve just ordered an edition of her collected poetry.

What a pleasant Saturday morning. ☺️ Sun is streaming through the windows and the fall colors are glorious!

I am savoring every word of each tiny chapter of this poetic novel.

Up next! Looking forward to this one given all of the love it has received. 💙

One of my favourite forms: a novel of vignettes. It's so effortlessly pulled off here that I wonder why more writers don't write novels in this way, but of course this is Brooks's writing with a poet's eye. It's easier to fill a book to the brim with superfluous details than it is to pare each sentence down like a fine-cut jewel. And what a gem this is about a working class Black woman's life in 1940s Chicago. I love that it's a book that doesn't

Perfect writing, as might be expected from a Pulitzer Prize winning poet. As Brooks initially intended this short novel to be a poem, it's wonderfully lyrical.
Following the life of Maud Martha in snapshots from childhood to womanhood, Brooks throws a revealing light on misogyny, racism and colourism, and although the term wouldn't be coined for several decades, on the intersectionality of these issues on Maud Martha's experience of life. 5❤️

“To create - a role, a poem, picture, music, a rapture in stone: great. But not for her.
What she wanted was to donate to the world a good Maud Martha. That was the offering, the bit of art, that could not come from any other.
She would polish and hone that.”

I need something a little less tome-like than A Glastonbury Romance to read as I walk to the shop, and Gwendolyn Brooks's Maude Martha fits the bill nicely.

Known for her poetry (1st African-American to win the Pulitzer for poetry in 1950) Brooks also wrote this slim novel. Told in vignettes, in often in a poetic style, we get the story of Maud Martha from girlhood to marriage and her first child in early to mid century Chicago. Evocative and occasionally heartbreaking, this glimpse into Maud Martha‘s hopes and disappointments.

#Booked2022 Black owned imprint https://thirdworldpressfoundation.org/

Beautifully written and deep.

The only novel from Gwendolyn Brooks who in 1940 became the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize. The novel captures the everyday experience of an African American woman in the 1940s reflecting on her childhood, marriage and motherhood.
#readingwomenchallenge2019 (novella)
#centuryreadchallenge

A poem by Gwendolyn Brooks! Makes me definitely want to read the book Maud Martha.
#words #QuotsyJan2018
@TK-421

#currentlyreading

I wish I wrote this book.