My you. All honest, lofty as a cloud.

Surely I could come now and find you high,

As mine as you ever were; should not be awed.

Surely your word would pop as insolent

As always: "Why, of course I love you, dear."

Your gaze, surely, ungauzed as I could want.

Your touches, that never were careful, what they were.

Surely - But I am very off from that.

From surely. From indeed. From the decent arrow

That was my clean naivete and my faith.

This morning men deliver wounds and death.

They will deliver death and wounds tomorrow.

War is a reality that has plagued man for many centuries. It effects all aspects of life and has often been the historical turning point for many movements that have changed the world's views about race, culture, society, economics, and politics. This is evident in most history books and political records, but the plight of the common man, the solider, the mourning wife, the parent or friend, is often forgotten about except for in literary works. Gwendolyn Brooks' Gays Chaps at the Bar is a collection of sonnets written in reaction to the problems as well as realities o

This poem, which was written during the aftermath of the Second World War, embodies many of the intense emotions that are present during times of war. Wars often make people disillusioned and callous; even their love can become full of doubt. Gwendolyn Brooks takes the constructions of love and distorts them with the realities of war. Though this poem was primarily explicated showing the relationship between two lovers torn apart by the war it can also be seen as a man doubting his country and the reasons why he is fighting. This is what makes Gwendolyn Brooks a seminal writer; she is able to deliver many different voices and perspectives through her work. In her own words, "["Gay Chaps at the Bar" is] A sonnet series in off-rhyme, because I felt it was an off-rhyme situation--I did think of that. I first wrote the one sonnet, without thinking extensions. I wrote it because of a letter I got from a soldier who included that phrase in what he was telling me; and then I said, there are other things to say about what's going on at the front and all, and I'll write more poems, some of them based on the stuff of letters that I was getting from several soldiers, and I felt it would be good to have them all in the same form, because it would serve my purposes throughout"(Brooks). By combining the English and the Petrarchan sonnet form and initiating the turn in the poem's meaning in the sestet, Brooks changes the tone from one of romantic thoughts to one of harsh actuality. Whereas she is very poetic with the romantic ideals, she proves that love, whether it is romantic or nationalistic, does not overcome all. She does this by showing the finality of the effects of war with the abruptness of the speaker's thoughts in the sestet marked by the end - stopped lines and spondees used for emphasis. She ends the poem with falling meter and the image of a violet being doubted revealing the fact that war can turn the most beautiful things ugly. Surely she is a seminal writer because she is able to bring all of these feelings and representative emotions to her poems. Surely this is true.

In the first of the two tercets she resolves that their relationship is no longer what it was. She has strayed from the idea of certainty and indeed. She once believed in love, Cupid's arrow that hit her, making her naive to the world. She had a great faith in her love. Though she did not look at her lover with the blinders of love, it did cause her to view the world in a different way. A woman is more apt to having her world change because of love. Women are taught to place their faith in love. Love is definite and tangible; if you have love you are safe. The author of this poem no longer believes that this love is her safe house. She has been exposed to something that has changed her viewpoint: war.

They will deliver death and wounds tomorrow.

Love note I: surely can be interpreted as illustrating two very different social commentaries. Using the "love note" as a device to encompass these different ideas, Brooks is able to speak to many issues in this one poem. On one hand she is able to show love and war from the perspective of two lovers. On the other hand, the lover motif could suggest the relationship between Black people and their country. In this interpretation, "surely" is a term of doubt and not certainty. "[T]he use of "surely" in this poem focuses the sarcasm on that about which the Black man would be most secure. Surely the country and its democracy could not be thought of by the Black man as "mine"; surely to him country had not been "all honest, lofty as a cloud"; surely he would not be assured of the country's love; and surely the country's eyes were not 'ungauzed'" (Shaw, 136-159).

Brooks uses the technique of enjambment in the lines that begin with "Surely" in the octave. The

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Approximate Word count = 2578
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)