LA FESTIVAL REVIEW : A Lively Getty Reading by Poet Brooks : Los Angeles Festival: “HOME, PLACE and MEMORY” A Citywide Arts Fest.

Gwendolyn Brooks is everything you expect her to be, and more. Compassionate yet droll, articulate yet homey, the distinguished poet gave a lively reading of her works at the Getty Museum on Sunday night as part of the Los Angeles Festival.

The first African-American to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry and the recipient of 70 honorary degrees, Brooks, at 76, is creative staying power incarnate. She’s as musical in person as her poetry is on the page--and no slouch as an entertainer, either.

The author of 20 books of poetry and fiction, Brooks read excerpts from a variety of poems from different periods in her writing life. She also took care to sample an array of topics, from the political portraits of famous and not-famous South Africans in such poems as “Winnie” and “The Near-Johannesburg Boy” to the domestic violence and low-income horror stories contained in her book of poems “Children Coming Home.”

Throughout her career, Brooks has come to be known as an advocate for those who are often least able to speak for themselves, including workers, the politically disenfranchised and especially children. Our Miss Brooks may not mince words when it comes to detailing the gritty realities of topics as taboo as child abuse, but she also finds heroism in even the ugliest situations.

Brooks gave her poems a highly theatrical, overtly melodious reading. Her spunky alto dipped up and down with the rich language, at times irreverent be-bop and at other times a canorous concerto. She played the words as though their timbre alone could conjure up the grimy pool halls, shabby tenements and besieged townships where her stories are set.

Perhaps the only thing as flashy as Brook’s reading style, though, was her sharp between-poem banter. Full of wry anecdotes and personal contes , the dissembling Brooks seldom let a chance for a quip pass.

Anyone who’s “tired of little tight-faced poets,” as one poem puts it, feeds heartily on this singular woman’s style and courage. “My poem is life and not finished,” she writes in “Winnie.” “I give you what I have.” And she does.