Sick of Roses...

a song in the front yard
by
Gwendolyn Brooks

I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life.
I want a peek at the back
Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed grows.
A girl gets sick of a rose.

I want to go in the back yard now
And maybe down the alley,
To where the charity children play.
I want a good time today.

They do some wonderful things.
They have some wonderful fun.
My mother sneers, but I say it’s fine
How they don’t have to go in at quarter to nine.
My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae
Will grow up to be a bad woman.
That George’ll be taken to Jail soon or late
(On account of last winter he sold our back gate).

But I say it’s fine. Honest, I do.
And I’d like to be a bad woman, too,
And wear the brave stockings of night-black lace
And strut down the streets with paint on my face.



Since this is supposed to from our favorites, I'm going to do one more of Gwendolyn Brook's poems! She's definitely one of my favorites, I don't know why, I always seem to like her poetry when I read it however, it has a certain rhythm to it that is so present in a lot of her poems, it's wonderful.

The voice Brooks uses is a young and longing voice. The main character desires to be like the other kids who are from "the wrong side of the tracks." She really admires these girls. You can tell that the narrator is very naive and young because of her use of the word "paint" for make-up which suggests that she is growing up in a very sheltered household and that her mother is very protective of her. Again, there is this rhythm that flows throughout the whole poem, like one could sing this poem as well as recite it.

Brooks also uses the front and the back yards as symbols for different parts of society. The front yard represents the author's disciplined and protected life style, she compares her lifestyle to a rose, and she is "sick" of them. In the front yard she watches life, rather than participating in it. The backyard represents a life that is grittier "Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed grows." These kids that live in the backyard, "don't have to go in at quaarter to nine" and she is very jealous of that. She wants to live a little and experience things, but her mother is always keeping her from doing anything like that.

The conflict of growing up is strong in this poem. The narrator wants to grow up, but her mother is an oppressive force who sneers at the kids in the backyard and the desires of the narrator to be like the other kids. The mother says that the girls "Will grow up to be a bad" women, trying to discourage the daughter from wanting to go play with the other kids.

As for external form, the poem has a sort of "couplet" at the end, which could suggest that this is a loose form of a sonnet, but there is no other indication of it being one.