Harsh Readers Circle

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Saturday, August 15, 2026 | Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection at Woodson Regional Library | 2:00pm
Lunch Provided from 1:00pm – 2:00pm
Free (Reservations Recommended)

For 40 years, the Harsh Readers Circle has been a staple literary book club based at Chicago Public Library’s Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection, the largest African American history and literature archive in the Midwest, located inside the Woodson Regional Library on the South Side. Inspired by the historic Book Review and Lecture Forum, started during the early years of the George Cleveland Hall library branch and meeting on the third Saturday of every month, the circle is dedicated to reading, analyzing, and discussing exceptional works of Black fiction and non-fiction.

Join the Harsh Readers Circle for this special convening as they explore their August selection: A Street in Bronzeville (found in the anthology, Blacks), the groundbreaking 1945 debut poetry collection by Chicago’s own literary giant, Gwendolyn Brooks.

About the Book

Published when Brooks was just 28 years old, A Street in Bronzeville launched her into the international literary spotlight and laid the groundwork for her historic Pulitzer Prize a few years later. The collection serves as an empathetic, unblinking portrait of daily life on Chicago’s South Side. Moving through sonnets, ballads, and blues rhythms, Brooks captures the vibrant humanity, persistent dreams, and quiet resilience of ordinary neighborhood figures, from workers and preachers to residents navigating the cramped confines of “kitchenette” buildings. By using what she called “off-rhyme” to mirror the structural inequities of a segregated city, Brooks elevates the everyday joys and struggles of Bronzeville into a universal masterpiece of American literature.

Photo by Ollie Photography.

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