The Crazy Woman

“The Crazy Woman” is a lyric poem as it is short, compact, and expresses personal and serious feelings. At the same time, the poem has its tongue-in-cheek elements, as the crazy woman is not crazy so much as an independent person doing what she wants. The crazy woman is the speaker, so the title refers to the poem’s narrator—a woman who, later on, people refer to as crazy.

The woman starts the poem on a confident note. Her tone is assertive, defiant, and declarative. The woman announces, “I shall not sing a May song” (Line 1). The “not” adds another element to the tone. “Not” is a negative adverb, and the speaker maintains a somewhat negative tone here in multiple ways. The tone is negative because the speaker wants to sing about things that are not typically positive. Secondly, the tone is negative because the speaker refuses to do an expected thing—she is not singing in May.

The speaker does not want to sing in May because such a song would “be gay” (Line 2), or happy. The woman does not want to sing a happy song, so she will “wait until November / And sing a song of gray” (Lines 3-4). The pairing of May and November represent two of the key themes in this poem: happiness and sadness. The woman does not want to sing a happy song in the warm springtime, but rather a sad song during the cold winter.

In Line 3, the term “wait” reinforces the assertive tone of the speaker. The woman possesses the patience and will to withhold their song for a long time—six months, to be specific. The speaker’s tone does not betray much vulnerability. There are no words to suggest that she is open to changing her mind and singing a happy song in May. The declarative lines leave little doubt that the woman will sing when she wants and will not be persuaded otherwise.

In Stanza 2, the tone becomes positive because this is the part of the poem that projects itself to the future, into November. Even though the woman will sing a song about sullen subjects, there is a positive, celebratory tone because the speaker can finally sing her song the way she wishes. In May, the speaker declined to sing, so the tone of the stanza reflected that negativity.  Since it is now November, the speaker agrees to sing, and the tone shifts to a more positive note.

About November, the speaker states, “That is the time for me” (Line 6); this is the speaker’s moment, where she will “go out in the frosty dark” (Line 7). Once again, the tough and defiant tone comes through. This woman is not afraid of the dark or the cold, instead she has been waiting for it. She is also not scared to “sing most terribly” (Line 8) and make some frightening noise. The speaker does not care if others do not want to hear a song on gloomy subjects, she will sing it anyway because other people cannot dictate her behavior. Indeed, the speaker’s autonomy links to two key themes: independence and voice. The speaker breaks from norms and acts according to her beliefs. She will use her voice, even if it is a voice people do not want to hear and find terrible.

The defiant themes add something else to the tone: irony. In an unexpected twist, the woman celebrates the arrival of gloomy November because now is the time she can sing her song. The woman is rejoicing over her chance to sing about solemn topics, and such a paradoxical development is ironic and even humorous.

In Stanza 3, the woman acknowledges that her singular choices will cause heads to turn and people to talk. She knows “all the little people / Will stare” (Lines 9-10) at her. She is aware these “little people” (Line 9) will say things. In a sense, the speaker’s audience is “the little people” (Line 9) The term implies these people—her immediate audience—are less than her and inferior and, as a result, bolsters the speaker’s superiority and her confident tone.

Of course, there is a second audience in play—the reader. In a way, the speaker’s pejorative tone forces the reader to choose sides. Either the reader could be like “the little people” (Line 9) and judge and talk about her, or the reader could be on her side and her equal.

In the final two lines, the “little people” (Line 9) say, “That is the Crazy Woman / Who would not sing in May” (Lines 11-12). The speaker turns “crazy woman” into “Crazy Woman” or a proper noun. It is as if the speaker has let these people rename her. Now, she is the Crazy Woman. This is her new identity. It does not matter what her identity was before, since this new name is what she is now in the poem.

Yet the woman embraces this identity flippantly or sarcastically. This is what the “little people” (Line 9) call her. The speaker does not call herself this, and she is not one of them; instead, she is the crazy woman, which creates a division between the speaker and her audience. The speaker uses the divide to suggest that there are others—people bigger in spirit and less judgmental—who would not see her as crazy.

One interpretation for the poem is to consider the woman’s song as a metaphor for poetry and the role of a poet. This reading seems particularly relevant considering the legacy of widespread segregation and inequality in America in 1960, and Brooks’ increasing participation in the Black Arts Movement. Poetry often sheds light on difficult subjects, confronts truths, provides an outlet for pain and healing, and reveals the beauty and ugliness of life to the reader. Like the “Crazy Woman” (Line 11) of the poem, Brooks’s role as a poet is to weather the worst of the elements and sometimes “sing a song of gray” (Line 4). In turn, she invites her reader to reject the judgmental attitude of the “little people” (Line 9), who expect everything to be “gay” (Line 2) and pleasant—instead the reader is challenged to accept the woman’s song as it comes from an authentic place, even if it is morose. More importantly, the singer (or the poet) is true to herself, singing “most terribly” (Line 8) and most authentically despite the likely reception. In this poem, artistic freedom means creating from the heart, no matter how it is received.