Kitchenette Building

"Kitchenette Building," by Gwendolyn Brooks, is a poem describing what it was like to live in a community house for African Americans. She describes the scene with such strong detail and imagery, it makes the reader feel an intense sense of sympathy for the poet. She portrays the people in the home as "grayed in, and gray," which makes everything seem boring and the same. She goes onto say that although dreams seem nice and joyful or "giddy," words like "rent,” “feeding a wife,” and “satisfying a man," were all much more practical at the time. 

Next, she describes smells and foods in the building, "onion fumes," fried potatoes," and "garbage ripening." These nasty descriptions are beautiful examples of imagery as they truly touch the reader's senses. One could almost smell those onions, and what the potatoes would've tasted like. And most definitely, one can smell what the garbage must've smelled like! Imagery creates visions inside of one's head to experience the described scene in a more meaningful way. Imagery  is very beneficial in telling the story of the, "Kitchenette Building."