89. Ross Gay and Gwendolyn Brooks, poets

Yesterday on FB I ran into a poem by Ross Gay, a sparkle of a man whose writing I enjoy so much. 

Sorrow Is Not My Name

                    —after Gwendolyn Brooks

No matter the pull toward brink. No
matter the florid, deep sleep awaits.
There is a time for everything. Look,
just this morning a vulture
nodded his red, grizzled head at me,
and I looked at him, admiring
the sickle of his beak.
Then the wind kicked up, and,
after arranging that good suit of feathers
he up and took off.
Just like that. And to boot,
there are, on this planet alone, something like two
million naturally occurring sweet things,
some with names so generous as to kick
the steel from my knees: agave, persimmon,
stick ball, the purple okra I bought for two bucks
at the market. Think of that. The long night,
the skeleton in the mirror, the man behind me
on the bus taking notes, yeah, yeah.
But look; my niece is running through a field
calling my name. My neighbor sings like an angel
and at the end of my block is a basketball court.
I remember. My color's green. I'm spring.

                    —for Walter Aikens

Well, that just got me curious about the epigraph: "after Gwendolyn Brooks." Fortunately, others have gotten curious too, and I quickly found an essay in the Paris Review that unlocks the secret. In it, the author references the poem that Gay was responding to:

To The Young Who Want To Die

Sit down. Inhale. Exhale.
The gun will wait. The lake will wait.
The tall gall in the small seductive vial
will wait will wait:
will wait a week: will wait through April.
You do not have to die this certain day.
Death will abide, will pamper your postponement.
I assure you death will wait. Death has
a lot of time. Death can
attend to you tomorrow. Or next week. Death is
just down the street; is most obliging neighbor;
can meet you any moment.

You need not die today.
Stay here—through pout or pain or peskyness.
Stay here. See what the news is going to be tomorrow.

Graves grow no green that you can use.
Remember, green's your color. You are Spring.

I have had less luck learning who Walter Aikens is. A young friend of Gay's, perhaps, who was battling his own sorrows. No telling, and not important—except for the connection that the two of them had (the poem was published in 2011) and hopefully still have.