Ulysses

Like other poems from this collection, the title of the poem gives the reader the speaker’s name, Ulysses. This name alludes to both Homer’s Odysseus and Joyce’s Ulysses [See: Literary Context]. By making this connection, Brooks situates her narrator in a long line of notable literary heroes. This name suggests that the boy’s story is worth telling and that his voice belongs amongst the greats. It also indicates a cleaver traveler on a long and perilous journey.

He begins describing his day by simply stating that “[a]t home we pray every morning” (Line 1). Their prayers recall the invocation of the muses at the beginning of an epic poem. Ulysses and his family need divine intervention to make it through their day. Ulysses lists the steps in this process. First, they kneel in a circle. Then, they hold hands. Finally, they “sing hallelujah” (Line 4). This opening feels warm and hopeful with a family united and “holding Love” (Line 3). The fact that this process is repeated every day suggests a stability and consistency in the family’s life.

This image contrasts with when the family must “go into the world” (Line 5). The physical divide of the home from the world emphasizes how their day-to-day life is a journey equivalent to that journey that Odysseus takes.

Out in the world, his family experiences temptation. Ulysses’s father “speeds, to break bread with his Girl Friend” (Line 6). The action of breaking bread can refer to both sharing a meal and taking communion. The combination of secular and religious reveals how this action perverts the religious beliefs the family professes to share in the opening of the poem. Because of his age as a child, the speaker does not criticize this act, but rather presents it frankly as a normal part of his Father’s Day. The speaker does the same with his mother, who he matter of factly describes as “a Boss. And a lesbian” (Line 7) with her own “nice Girl Friend” (Line 8). Since she is nice, the speaker has no problem with his mother’s extramarital affair. Ulysses’s parents consistently succumb to temptation and live in sin unrepentantly, revealing a hypocrisy about their religious faith and undermining the image of the family in the first stanza.

While his parents are at work, Ulysses and his siblings attend school. The phrase “my brothers and sisters” (Line 9) refers both to Ulysses’s biological siblings and also to all Black school children. Brooks’s purpose for writing this poem is partially to draw attention to the collective racial experience of Black school children in Chicago. These children “bring knives pistols bottles, little boxes, and cans” (Lines 10) with them to school, rather than books, pencils, and paper. Instead of preparing for education, the children are prepared for conflict.

When on the playground, they “talk to the man who’s cool” (Line 11). To the adult reader, the man’s coolness is suspect, even if the child speaker does not recognize it. This man operates in secret and traffics in something untoward, at best. His physical separation from the children by “the playground gate” (Line 11) reveals how he does not belong in this space, despite the children’s desire to include him in their world.

The children’s interactions are not noticed and “nobody stops [their] sin” (Line 12). While the speaker does not specifically name their actions, the use of the word sin suggests that the action is immoral and a serious fault. Brooks seeks to hold the wider world accountable when she states that “[n]obody Sees” and “stops” (Line 12) the children. Here, Brooks references Odysseus’s encounter with the cyclops [See: Literary Context]. In that poem, Odysseus calls himself Nobody as a way of escaping responsibility and punishment for blinding the cyclops who held him and his crew. Brooks echoes this sentiment by using it to condemn society’s inaction. Society does not see the struggles of Black children in Chicago schools and does nothing to help children live a better life. Individuals capable of taking action become the collective Nobody with no one noticing or acting. The informally racially segregated school districts result in underfunded Black schools in neighborhoods with fewer resources. While the speaker seems to blame himself for his sin, Brooks holds the adults responsible.

Ulysses then describes how the teachers attempt to teach them, but the students only superficially engage. The students give the right answers “in a hurry” (Line 14). The teachers may try to “feed” (Line 13) the children, but their nourishment is rejected. The imagery of eating is continued when the students “spit” (Line 14) the lessons out as if it were food. This scene recalls Odysseus’s encounter with the Lotus Eaters [See: Literary Context]. Like Odysseus, the students reject the food that keeps them from returning home. Yet this rejection is not as straight-forwardly good as it is for Odysseus and his crew. The students reject the means to get a better life.

The end of the school day and the return to home is again marked by a physical separation. Once at home, the family again prays. This time, though, the praying acts as a means of absolution after a day of temptation and sin. The repetition of this action reveals the cyclic nature of the family’s life, suggesting that the next day will be the same. Yet this second repetition does differ from the first: the singing of hallelujah is its own stanza. This division draws attention to the ironic singing of praise and gratitude after their trying days in the world. Despite having described nothing to be thankful for during their day, Ulysses and his family sing. Whether this is an act of hope or hypocrisy is left ambiguous by Brooks.