Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks (1917–2000) was an American poet and educator famous for works that contend with the everyday life of urban blacks. The first African American poet to win the Pulitzer (1950,) she was also the first African-American woman named as poetry consultant to the Library of Congress 1985–86.
Born in Topeka, Kansas, Brooks grew up in the slums of Chicago. She wrote actively from an early age, and her first poem was published at the age of 13. She taught English in many colleges and was publicity director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) during the 1930s.
Brooks’s first book of poetry, A Street in Bronzeville (1945,) and her novel Annie Allen (1949; Pulitzer, 1950) established her work’s central theme—the cares of city-dwelling black Americans. Succeeding poetry and prose works were progressively more radical in tone, as in Riot (1969) and Blacks (1987.)
Brooks’s other works include the novel Maud Martha (1953,) an autobiography, Report from Part One (1972,) Winnie (1988,) and Children Coming Home (1991.)
George E. Kent wrote A Life of Gwendolyn Brooks (1990.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Gwendolyn Brooks
Poetry is life distilled.
—Gwendolyn Brooks
Topics: Poetry, Poets, One liners
A writer should get as much education as possible, but just going to chool is not enough; if it were, all owners of doctorates would be inspired writers.
—Gwendolyn Brooks
Topics: Inspiration
We are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.
—Gwendolyn Brooks
Topics: Responsibility
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