Freedom after Hell

My Dreams, My Works, Must Wait Till After Hell by Gwendolyn Brooks

1 I hold my honey and I store my bread

2 In little jars and cabinets of my will.

3 I label clearly, and each latch and lid

4 I bid, Be firm till I return from hell.

5 I am very hungry. I am incomplete.

6 And none can give me any word but Wait,

7 The puny light. I keep my eyes pointed in;

8 Hoping that, when the devil days of my hurt

9 Drag out to their last dregs and I resume

10 On such legs as are left me, in such heart

11 As I can manage, remember to go home,

12 My taste will not have turned insensitive

13 To honey and bread old purity could love.

Gwendolyn Brooks is a famous black poet most known for being the first black person to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize. She passionately wrote about the civil right issues of the time and became a much known figure. She was also poetry consultant to the Library of Congress; the first black woman to hold that position

This poem discusses the speaker's longing for freedom. The speaker is in a personal hell. The honey and bread are both metaphors for spiritual sustenance, the strength to continue persevering through ‘hell’. The speaker takes their hopes and dreams, sequestering them away in a far off corner of their find until such a time when the speaker can return from hell. The speaker ‘hungers’ and yearns to let their feelings free. These feelings are kept locked up, waiting until the perceived time is right, as shown in line 6. The ‘puny light’ in line 7 shows how the speaker is waiting on an unreliable source. The light may flicker or die. The speaker then continues to say that when their ‘hell’ and struggle is finally over, they hope that they will still be able to appreciate freedom and content. In line 12 the speaker says that they hope their ‘taste’, referring to their longing, has not turned insensitive. For if this had happened, there would have been no point in waiting so patiently for the right time to release these feelings.