{"id":42963,"date":"2015-05-06T10:00:03","date_gmt":"2015-05-06T14:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lemasney.com\/projects\/illustratedquotes\/?p=84"},"modified":"2020-07-11T16:35:38","modified_gmt":"2020-07-11T20:35:38","slug":"we-want-nights-of-vague-adventure-gwendolyn-brooks-cc-by-lemasney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/2015\/05\/06\/we-want-nights-of-vague-adventure-gwendolyn-brooks-cc-by-lemasney\/","title":{"rendered":"We want nights of vague adventure &#8211; Gwendolyn Brooks cc-by lemasney"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_87\" style=\"width: 760px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/We-want-nights-of-vague-adventure-Gwendolyn-Brooks-cc-by-lemasney1.png?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-87\" data-attachment-id=\"87\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/20100108\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/20100108.png?fit=501%2C501&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"501,501\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"20100108\" data-image-description=\"&lt;p&gt;This is a pig based on a Spirograph effect in Inkscape. &lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Spirograph Pig&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/20100108.png?fit=501%2C501&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"wp-image-87 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/We-want-nights-of-vague-adventure-Gwendolyn-Brooks-cc-by-lemasney1.png?resize=750%2C1000&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"We want nights of vague adventure - Gwendolyn Brooks cc-by lemasney\" width=\"750\" height=\"1000\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-87\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">We want nights of vague adventure &#8211; Gwendolyn Brooks cc-by lemasney<\/p><\/div>\n<h3>We want nights of vague adventure &#8211; Gwendolyn Brooks cc-by lemasney<\/h3>\n<p>&#8220;Now, at 77, Gwendolyn Brooks, perhaps our greatest living poet, has been chosen by the National Endowment for the Humanities to deliver the 1994 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities. She will speak today in Washington and next week in Chicago. This is the highest honor the federal government bestows for intellectual achievement in the humanities. It was given because she has <!--more-->brought the experiences of black Americans into our national consciousness and transformed them into art. Ms. Brooks began writing poems &#8212; &#8221;putting rhymes together&#8221; &#8212; when she was 7. At 11, she began keeping her poems in composition books, her mother telling her that she would become the female Paul Laurence Dunbar. Believing her mother, Ms. Brooks kept on writing, sometimes turning out two or three poems in one day, &#8221;all very, very, very bad,&#8221; she said. Having few friends (she thought it was because she had a dark complexion and nappy hair), she &#8221;slumped through the halls, quiet, hugging books,&#8221; immersing herself in reading and writing. The color bar, she explained, was very high. &#8221;A dark-skinned girl just didn&#8217;t have a chance.&#8221; Ms. Brooks put much of what she experienced into writing. Her novel, &#8221;Maud Martha,&#8221; contains a scene where a boy wants to put a light-skinned girl into his wagon but not a darker girl. When she says something, he says, &#8221;shut up, you old black girl.&#8221; Many similar scenes appear in Ms. Brooks&#8217; poems. Reading them is like looking through a scrapbook showing various black characters who, like the hunchback girl thinking of heaven as a straight place, say more than they mean to say. A poem about love and war puts it this way: &#8221;We want nights of vague adventure, lips lax wet and warm, Bees in the stomach, sweat across the brow. Now.&#8221; Often as the characters talk, the stories of their lives emerge. Speaking of her aborted children as &#8221;damp small pulps with little no hair,&#8221; a mother describes the lives they might have led, ending the poem with a declaration of love: &#8221;Believe me, I knew you though faintly, and I loved, I loved you all.&#8221;&#8221; &#8211; Perhaps Our Greatest Living Poet &#8211; tribunedigital-baltimoresun &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baltimoresun.com\/news\/bs-xpm-1994-05-04-1994124172-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">http:\/\/goo.gl\/bdLKGI<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We want nights of vague adventure &#8211; Gwendolyn Brooks cc-by lemasney &#8220;Now, at 77, Gwendolyn Brooks, perhaps our greatest living poet, has been chosen by the National Endowment for the Humanities to deliver the 1994 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities. She will speak today in Washington and next week in Chicago. This is the highest [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1128,4110],"tags":[411,599,652],"class_list":{"0":"post-42963","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-image","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-illustration","8":"category-inkscape-portfolio","9":"tag-inkscape","10":"tag-open-source","11":"tag-poetry","12":"post_format-post-format-image","13":"czr-hentry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/We-want-nights-of-vague-adventure-Gwendolyn-Brooks-cc-by-lemasney.png?fit=750%2C1000&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3h6y2-baX","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5884,"url":"https:\/\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/2011\/02\/08\/39-of-365-is-a-life-swallowed-inkscape\/","url_meta":{"origin":42963,"position":0},"title":"39 of 365 is a life, swallowed #Inkscape","author":"lemsy","date":"2011-02-08","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 I recently decided to jump-start submissions for requests on 365 by asking for random captions and titles for pieces. This isn't my idea. The best example of this I can think of is explodingdog who has done this for about 10 years. If you've never seen his quirky, sometimes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;portfolio&quot;","block_context":{"text":"portfolio","link":"https:\/\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/category\/portfolio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"A life, swallowed. 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(cc-by lemasney) lemasney, design, open source,\u00a0creative commons, cc-by, typography, poster, Inkscape,\u00a0GIMP, primary, color, experiment, study, greetings, Inkscape, open source, gpl,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;portfolio&quot;","block_context":{"text":"portfolio","link":"https:\/\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/category\/portfolio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"An end of the day note: Goodnight, sweetness by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #farewell #Inkscape #illustration","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/20110205.png?fit=809%2C500&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/20110205.png?fit=809%2C500&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/20110205.png?fit=809%2C500&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/20110205.png?fit=809%2C500&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5714,"url":"https:\/\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/2010\/08\/17\/239-of-365-is-a-week-in-the-life-of-a-librarian-infographic-inkscape\/","url_meta":{"origin":42963,"position":2},"title":"A week in the life of a librarian by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #cc #design #infographic","author":"lemsy","date":"2010-08-17","format":false,"excerpt":"The only way you'll be able to read this is if you click on it. The full size is 20\"x30\" and it's an infographic depicting one week in the life of a librarian. Anyone who knows Janie Hermann knows just how busy she is, but it's nice to see it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;portfolio&quot;","block_context":{"text":"portfolio","link":"https:\/\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/category\/portfolio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"A week in the life of a librarian by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #cc #design #infographic","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/20100817janiesweek.png?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/20100817janiesweek.png?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/20100817janiesweek.png?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/20100817janiesweek.png?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/20100817janiesweek.png?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5722,"url":"https:\/\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/2010\/08\/25\/247-of-365-is-about-life-and-truth-typography-inkscape\/","url_meta":{"origin":42963,"position":3},"title":"About life and truth (potatoes gonna potate) by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #typography #Inkscape #design #cc","author":"lemsy","date":"2010-08-25","format":false,"excerpt":"We are who we are. It's hard to break with what we know. I saw this idea somewhere, and wanted to pay a little Inkscape homage to the idea. Cause we're all potatoes in one way or another, and potatoes gonna potate. Tomatoes gonna tomate. Haters gonna hate. Related articles\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;portfolio&quot;","block_context":{"text":"portfolio","link":"https:\/\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/category\/portfolio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"About life and truth (potatoes gonna potate) by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #typography #Inkscape #design #cc","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/20100825potatoes.png?fit=809%2C500&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/20100825potatoes.png?fit=809%2C500&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/20100825potatoes.png?fit=809%2C500&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/20100825potatoes.png?fit=809%2C500&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5683,"url":"https:\/\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/2010\/07\/18\/libraries-transliteracy-cc-lemasney-logo-inkscape-libraries-design-typography\/","url_meta":{"origin":42963,"position":4},"title":"Libraries and Transliteracy cc-by lemasney #logo #Inkscape #libraries #design #typography","author":"lemsy","date":"2010-07-18","format":"image","excerpt":"Libraries and Transliteracy cc-by lemasney #logo #Inkscape #libraries #design #typography","rel":"","context":"In &quot;affiliations&quot;","block_context":{"text":"affiliations","link":"https:\/\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/category\/cv\/professional-affiliations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Libraries and Transliteracy cc-by lemasney #logo #Inkscape #libraries #design #typography","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/20100718transliteracy.png?fit=809%2C500&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/20100718transliteracy.png?fit=809%2C500&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/20100718transliteracy.png?fit=809%2C500&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/20100718transliteracy.png?fit=809%2C500&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6086,"url":"https:\/\/lemasney.com\/consulting\/2011\/08\/30\/day-240-nobodys-perfect-inkscape\/","url_meta":{"origin":42963,"position":5},"title":"Nobody&#8217;s perfect by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #cc #design #Inkscape","author":"lemsy","date":"2011-08-30","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm not sure what to say\u00a0beyond this, but if you ever wondered, it's true: There's no one that's perfect. Even you. 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