Gwendolyn Brooks - Wikipedia

American writer (1917–2000)

Gwendolyn Brooks
Brooks in 2010
Born	Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks(1917-06-07)June 7, 1917Topeka, Kansas, U.S.
Died	December 3, 2000(2000-12-03) (aged 83)Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Occupation	Poet
Education	Kennedy-King College
Period	1930–2000
Notable works	A Street in Bronzeville, Annie Allen, Winnie
Notable awards	Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (1950)Robert Frost Medal (1989)National Medal of Arts (1995)
Spouse	Henry Lowington Blakely, Jr. ​ ​(m. 1939; died 1996)​
Children	2, including Nora Brooks Blakely

Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks (June 7, 1917 – December 3, 2000) was an American poet, author, and teacher. Her work often dealt with the personal celebrations and struggles of ordinary people in her community. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry on May 1, 1950, for Annie Allen,[1] making her the first African American to receive a Pulitzer Prize.[2][3]

Throughout her prolific writing career, Brooks received many more honors. A lifelong resident of Chicago, she was appointed Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968, a position she held until her death 32 years later.[4] She was also named the U.S. Poet Laureate for the 1985–86 term.[5] In 1976, she became the first African-American woman inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.[6]

Early life

[edit]

Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks was born on June 7, 1917, in Topeka, Kansas, and was raised on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois. She was the first child of David Anderson Brooks and Keziah (Wims) Brooks.[2] Her father, a janitor for a music company, had hoped to pursue a career as a doctor but sacrificed that aspiration to support getting married and raising a family.[2] Her mother was a school teacher as well as a concert pianist trained in classical music.[2] Brooks' mother had taught at the Topeka school that later became involved in the Brown v. Board of Education racial desegregation case.[7] Family lore held that Brooks' paternal grandfather had escaped slavery to join the Union forces during the American Civil War.[8]

When Brooks was six weeks old, her family moved to Chicago during the Great Migration, and from then on, Chicago remained her home.[2] She would closely identify with Chicago for the rest of her life.[2] In a 1994 interview, she remarked:

Living in the city, I wrote differently than I would have if I had been raised in Topeka, KS ... I am an organic Chicagoan. Living there has given me a multiplicity of characters to aspire for. I hope to live there the rest of my days. That's my headquarters.[9]

Brooks started her formal education at Forestville Elementary School on Chicago's South Side.[10] She then attended a prestigious integrated high school in the city with a predominantly white student body, Hyde Park High School; transferred to the all-black Wendell Phillips High School; and finished her schooling at integrated Englewood High School.[11]

According to biographer Kenny Jackson Williams, due to the social dynamics of the various schools, in conjunction with the era in which she attended them, Brooks faced much racial injustice. Over time, this experience helped her understand the prejudice and bias in established systems and dominant institutions, not only in her own surroundings but in every relevant American mindset.[11]

Brooks began writing at an early age and her mother encouraged her, saying: "You are going to be the lady Paul Laurence Dunbar."[12] During her teenage years, she began filling books with ''careful rhymes'' and ''lofty meditations", as well as submitting poems to various publications.[2] Her first poem was published in American Childhood when she was 13.[2] By the time she had graduated from high school in 1935, she was already a regular contributor to The Chicago Defender.[10]

After her early educational experiences, Brooks did not pursue a four-year college degree because she knew she wanted to be a writer and considered it unnecessary. "I am not a scholar," she later said.[9] "I'm just a writer who loves to write and will always write."[9] She graduated in 1936 from a two-year program at Wilson Junior College, now known as Kennedy-King College, and at first worked as a typist to support herself while she pursued her career.[9]

Career

[edit]

Writing

[edit]

Brooks published her first poem, "Eventide", in a children's magazine, American Childhood, when she was 13 years old.[6][2] By the age of 16, she had already written and published approximately 75 poems. At 17, she started submitting her work to "Lights and Shadows", the poetry column of the Chicago Defender, an African-American newspaper. Her poems, many published while she attended Wilson Junior College, ranged in style from traditional ballads and sonnets to poems using blues rhythms in free verse.[13] In her early years, she received commendations on her poetic work and encouragement from James Weldon Johnson, Richard Wright and Langston Hughes.[14] James Weldon Johnson sent her the first critique of her poems when she was only 16 years old.[14]

Her characters were often drawn from the inner-city life that Brooks knew well. She said, "I lived in a small second-floor apartment at the corner, and I could look first on one side and then the other. There was my material."[2]

By 1941, Brooks was taking part in poetry workshops. A particularly influential one was organized by Inez Cunningham Stark, an affluent white woman with a strong literary background. Stark offered writing workshops at the new South Side Community Art Center, which Brooks attended.[15] It was here she gained momentum in finding her voice and a deeper knowledge of the techniques of her predecessors. Renowned poet Langston Hughes stopped by the workshop and heard her read "The Ballad of Pearl May Lee".[15] In 1944, she achieved a goal she had been pursuing through continued unsolicited submissions since she was 14 years old: two of her poems were published in Poetry magazine's November issue. In the autobiographical information she provided to the magazine, she described her occupation as a "housewife".[16]

Brooks published her first book of poetry, A Street in Bronzeville (1945), with Harper & Brothers, after a strong show of support to the publisher from author Richard Wright.[15] It consists of a series of poems related the lives of African Americans in the Chicago neighborhood.[17] Wright said to the editors who solicited his opinion on Brooks' work:

There is no self-pity here, not a striving for effects. She takes hold of reality as it is and renders it faithfully. ... She easily catches the pathos of petty destinies; the whimper of the wounded; the tiny accidents that plague the lives of the desperately poor, and the problem of color prejudice among Negroes.[15]

The book earned instant critical acclaim for its authentic and textured portraits of life in Bronzeville. Brooks later said it was a glowing review by Paul Engle in the Chicago Tribune that "initiated My Reputation".[15] Engle stated that Brooks' poems were no more "Negro poetry" than Robert Frost's work was "white poetry". Brooks received her first Guggenheim Fellowship in 1946 and was included as one of the "Ten Young Women of the Year" in Mademoiselle magazine.[18]

Brooks' second book of poetry, Annie Allen (1949), focused on the life and experiences of a young Black girl growing into womanhood in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago. The book was awarded the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, and was also awarded Poetry magazine's Eunice Tietjens Prize.[12]

In 1953, Brooks published her first and only narrative book, a novella titled Maud Martha, which is a series of 34 vignettes about the experience of black women entering adulthood, consistent with the themes of her previous works.[17] Maud Martha follows the life of a black woman named Maud Martha Brown as she moves about life from childhood to adulthood. It tells the story of "a woman with doubts about herself and where and how she fits into the world. Maud's concern is not so much that she is inferior but that she is perceived as being ugly," states author Harry B. Shaw in his book Gwendolyn Brooks.[19] Maud suffers prejudice and discrimination not only from white individuals but also from black individuals who have lighter skin tones than hers, something that is a direct reference to Brooks' personal experience. Eventually, Maud stands up for herself by turning her back on a patronizing and racist store clerk. "The book is ... about the triumph of the lowly," Shaw comments.[19] In contrast, literary scholar Mary Helen Washington emphasizes Brooks's critique of racism and sexism, calling Maud Martha "a novel about bitterness, rage, self-hatred, and the silence that results from suppressed anger".[20]

In 1967, the year of Langston Hughes's death, Brooks attended the Second Black Writers' Conference at Nashville's Fisk University. Here, according to one version of events, she met activists and artists such as Imamu Amiri Baraka, Don L. Lee and others who exposed her to new black cultural nationalism. Recent studies argue that she had been involved in leftist politics in Chicago for many years and, under the pressures of McCarthyism, adopted a black nationalist posture as a means of distancing herself from her prior political connections.[21] Brooks's experience at the conference inspired many of her subsequent literary activities. She taught creative writing to some of Chicago's Blackstone Rangers, otherwise a violent criminal gang. In 1968, she published one of her most famous works, In the Mecca, a long poem about a mother's search for her lost child in a Chicago apartment building. The poem was nominated for the National Book Award for poetry.[18]

Following her publications with Harper, Brooks published titles beginning in the 1960s with independent Black-owned publishers: Broadside Press, Third World Press as well as her own small presses, Brooks Press and The David Company.[22]

Her autobiographical Report From Part One, including reminiscences, interviews, photographs and vignettes, came out in 1972, and Report From Part Two was published in 1995, when she was almost 80.[6] Her other works include Primer for Blacks (1980), Young Poet’s Primer (1980), To Disembark (1981), The Near-Johannesburg Boy, and Other Poems (1986), Blacks (1987), Winnie (1988), and Children Coming Home (1991).[17] She was a contributor to the 1992 anthology Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.[23]

Teaching

[edit]

Brooks said her first teaching experience was at the University of Chicago when she was invited by author Frank London Brown to teach a course in American literature. It was the beginning of her lifelong commitment to sharing poetry and teaching writing.[9] Brooks taught extensively around the country and held posts at Columbia College Chicago, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago State University, Elmhurst College, Columbia University, and the City College of New York.[24]

Archives

[edit]

The Rare Book & Manuscript Library of the University of Illinois acquired Brooks's archives from her daughter Nora Blakely.[25] In addition, the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley has a collection of her personal papers, especially from 1950 to 1989.[26][27]

Family life

[edit]

In 1939, Brooks married Henry Lowington Blakely Jr., whom she met after joining Chicago's NAACP Youth Council.[6] They had two children: Henry Lowington Blakely III, and Nora Brooks Blakely.[2] Brooks' husband died in 1996.[28]

From mid-1961 to late 1964, Henry III served in the U.S. Marine Corps, first at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego and then at Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay. During this time, Brooks mentored her son's fiancée, Kathleen Hardiman, in writing poetry. Upon his return, Blakely and Hardiman married in 1965.[15] Brooks had so enjoyed the mentoring relationship that she began to engage more frequently in that role with the new generation of young black poets.[15]

Gwendolyn Brooks died at her Chicago home on December 3, 2000, aged 83.[2] She is buried in Lincoln Cemetery.[29]

Honors and legacy

[edit]

Honors

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• 1946, Guggenheim Fellow in Poetry.[2]
• 1949, Poetry magazine's Eunice Tietjens Memorial Prize[2]
• 1950, Pulitzer Prize in Poetry[2] Gwendolyn Brooks in 1950 became the first African-American to be given a Pulitzer Prize. It was awarded for the volume, Annie Allen, which chronicled in verse the life of an ordinary black girl growing up in the Bronzeville neighborhood on Chicago's South Side.[30]
• 1968, appointed Poet Laureate of Illinois, a position she held until her death in 2000[2]
• 1969, Anisfield-Wolf Book Award[31]
• 1973, Honorary consultant in American letters to the Library of Congress[32]
• 1976, inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters[6]
• 1976, the Shelley Memorial Award of the Poetry Society of America[33]
• 1979, Langston Hughes Medal
• 1980, appointed to Presidential Commission on the National Agenda for the Eighties.[32]
• 1981, Gwendolyn Brooks Junior High School in Harvey, Illinois dedicated in her honor.[32]
• 1985, selected as the Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, an honorary one-year term, known as the Poet Laureate of the United States[2]
• 1988, inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame[34]
• 1989, awarded the Robert Frost Medal for lifetime achievement by the Poetry Society of America[35]
• 1994, chosen to present the National Endowment for the Humanities' Jefferson Lecture.[2]
• 1994, received the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters[36]
• 1995, presented with the National Medal of Arts[37]
• 1997, awarded the Order of Lincoln, the highest honor granted by the State of Illinois.[38]
• 1999, awarded the Academy of American Poets Fellowship for distinguished poetic achievement[39]

Legacy

[edit]

• First awarded in 1969 (for “Marigolds” by Eugenia Collier): Gwendolyn Brooks Prize for Fiction[40][41]
• 1970: Gwendolyn Brooks Cultural Center, Western Illinois University, Macomb, Illinois[42]
• 1990: Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing, Chicago State University[43]
• 1994: Furious Flower Poetry Center, the United States's first academic center for Black poetry, takes its name in honor of Brooks and her poem, “The Second Sermon on the Warpland” (1968)[44]
• 1995: Gwendolyn Brooks Elementary School, Aurora, Illinois[45]
• 2001: Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy, Chicago, Illinois[46]
• 2002: 100 Greatest African Americans[47]
• 2002: Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School, Oak Park, Illinois[48]
• 2003: Gwendolyn Brooks Illinois State Library, Springfield, Illinois[49][50]
• 2004: Hyacinth Park in Chicago was renamed Gwendolyn Brooks Park.[51]
• 2010: Inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.[52]
• 2012: Honored on a United States' postage stamp.[53]
• 2017: Various centennial events in Chicago marked what would have been her 100th birthday.[54]
• 2017–18: "Our Miss Brooks @ 100" (OMB100) a celebration of the life of Brooks (born June 7, 1917), which ran through June 17, 2018. The opening ceremony on February 2, 2017, at the Art Institute of Chicago featured readings and discussions of Brooks' influence by Pulitzer Prize-winning poets Rita Dove, Yusef Komunyakaa, Gregory Pardlo, Tracy K. Smith, and Natasha Trethewey.[55][56]
• 2018: On what would have been her 101st birthday, a statue of her, titled "Gwendolyn Brooks: The Oracle of Bronzeville", was unveiled at Gwendolyn Brooks Park in Chicago.[57][58]
• 2021: Gwendolyn Brooks Memorial Park dedicated in Macomb, Illinois.[59]
• 2022: Brooks was the subject of an exhibition, Gwendolyn Brooks: A Poet’s Work In Community,[60] at the Morgan Library & Museum.

Works

[edit]

The Poetry Foundation lists these works among others:

• A Street in Bronzeville, Harper, 1945.
• Annie Allen, Harper, 1949.
• Maud Martha, Harper, 1953.
• Bronzeville Boys and Girls, Harper, 1956.
• The Bean Eaters, Harper, 1960.
• We Real Cool, Brooks Press, 1960.
• In the Mecca, Harper, 1968.
• For Illinois 1968: A Sesquicentennial Poem, Harper, 1968.
• Riot, Broadside Press, 1969.
• Family Pictures, Broadside Press, 1970.
• Aloneness, Broadside Press, 1971.
• Report from Part One: An Autobiography, Broadside Press, 1972.
• Black Love, Brooks Press, 1982.
• Mayor Harold Washington; and, Chicago, the I Will City, Brooks Press, 1983.
• The Near-Johannesburg Boy, and Other Poems, David Co., 1987.
• Winnie, Third World Press, 1988.
• Report from Part Two, Third World Press, 1996.
• In Montgomery, and Other Poems, Third World Press, 2003.

Several collections of multiple works by Brooks were also published.[19]

Papers

[edit]

• Letters by Brooks, Atlanta University, Atlanta, Georgia.[32]
• Typescript for Annie Allen, State University of New York at Buffalo[32]

See also

[edit]

• African-American literature
• Chicago Literature
• Golden shovel, a poetic form inspired by Brooks' work
• List of African-American firsts
• List of poets
• List of Poets from the United States

References

[edit]

1. ^ Banks, Margot Harper (2012). Religious allusion in the poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks. McFarland & Co. p. 3. ISBN 978-0786449392.
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Watkins, Mel (December 4, 2000). "Gwendolyn Brooks, Whose Poetry Told of Being Black in America, Dies at 83". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 6, 2014. Retrieved September 13, 2012. Gwendolyn Brooks, who illuminated the black experience in America in poems that spanned most of the 20th century, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1950, died yesterday at her home in Chicago. She was 83.
3. ^ "Frost? Williams? No, Gwendolyn Brooks". pulitzer.org. Archived from the original on December 20, 2016. Retrieved January 24, 2020.
4. ^ "Illinois Poet Laureate". Archived from the original on February 28, 2015. Retrieved March 6, 2015.
5. ^ "Poet Laureate Timeline: 1981–1990". Library of Congress. 2008. Archived from the original on June 29, 2006. Retrieved December 19, 2008.
6. ^ a b c d e Busby, Margaret, "Gwendolyn Brooks – Poet who called out to black people everywhere" Archived August 1, 2020, at the Wayback Machine, The Guardian, December 7, 2000.
7. ^ Kniggendorf, Anne (June 7, 2017). "Renowned Poet Gwendolyn Brooks' Time In Kansas Was Short, But Worth A Birthday Party". kcur.org. Archived from the original on February 3, 2019. Retrieved June 9, 2017.
8. ^ Kent (1993). A Life of Gwendolyn Brooks. pp. 1–2.
9. ^ a b c d e Hawkins, B. Denise (1994). "An Evening with Gwendolyn Brooks". James Madison University Furious Flower Poetry Center. Archived from the original on May 30, 2010. Retrieved March 6, 2015. Reprinted from Black Issues in Higher Education, November 3, 1994, vol. 11, no. 18, pp. 16, 20–21.
10. ^ a b Salley, Columbus (1999). The Black 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential African-Americans, Past and Present. Citadel Press. p. 232. ISBN 978-0806520483. Archived from the original on April 15, 2021. Retrieved October 9, 2020.
11. ^ a b Williams, Kenny Jackson (2001). "Brooks, Gwendolyn". In Andrews, William L.; Foster, Frances Smith; Harris, Trudier (eds.). The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Oxford University Press. p. 47. ISBN 978-0198031758. Archived from the original on August 2, 2020. Retrieved August 23, 2014.
12. ^ a b Watkins, Mel (December 5, 2000). "Gwendolyn Brooks, 83, Passionate Poet, Dies". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 14, 2016. Retrieved March 14, 2016.
13. ^ Hancock, Bill (February 21, 2021). "Gwendolyn Brooks; first African American Pulitzer Prize winner". Runnels County Register. Archived from the original on November 25, 2021. Retrieved November 25, 2021.
14. ^ a b Grigsby Bates, Karen (May 29, 2017). "Remembering The Great Poet Gwendolyn Brooks At 100". NPR. Archived from the original on May 31, 2017. Retrieved June 1, 2017.
15. ^ a b c d e f g Kent, George E. (1993). A Life of Gwendolyn Brooks. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. pp. 54–55, 184. ISBN 0813108276. Archived from the original on April 14, 2021. Retrieved March 15, 2012.
16. ^ Share, Don. "Introduction: June 2017, Gwendolyn Brooks speaks to us more vividly than ever" (June 2017 ed.). Poetry. Archived from the original on June 29, 2017. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
17. ^ a b c Tikkanen, Amy. "Gwendolyn Brooks Biography, Poetry, Books, & Facts". Britannica.com. Archived from the original on July 26, 2022. Retrieved July 26, 2022.
18. ^ a b Miller, Jason (2009). "Brooks, Gwendolyn". In Finkleman, Paul (ed.). Encyclopedia of African American History: 1896 to the Present. Vol. 1. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 288.
19. ^ a b c "Gwendolyn Brooks". Poetry Foundation. Archived from the original on April 21, 2016. Retrieved June 5, 2017.
20. ^ Washington, Mary Helen (1989). Invented Lives: Narratives of Black Women 1860–1960. London: Virago. p. 387.
21. ^ See Mary Helen Washington, The Other Blacklist, Columbia University Press, 2014, chapter 4, "When Gwendolyn Brooks Wore Red".
22. ^ "Lift Every Voice | Gwendolyn Brooks 1917 – 2000". www.africanamericanpoetry.org. Library of America. Retrieved September 13, 2025.
23. ^ Busby, Margaret, ed. (1992). "Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent from the Ancient Egyptian to the Present". Library Thing. Retrieved June 19, 2025.
24. ^ Although her biographer Kenny Jackson Williams lists this as Clay College of New York, there is otherwise no evidence that such a college ever existed. Other biographies show that Brooks did teach at the City College of New York, and it is likely that "Clay College" is simply a typo for "City College".
25. ^ Williams, John (October 17, 2013). "University of Illinois Acquires Gwendolyn Brooks Archives". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 18, 2013. Retrieved October 18, 2013.
26. ^ "Finding Aid to the Gwendolyn Brooks Papers, 1917–2000, bulk 1950–1989". Online Archive of California. Archived from the original on July 5, 2009. Retrieved August 23, 2014.
27. ^ Maclay, Kathleen (January 11, 2001). "Personal papers of Pulitzer-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks join archives at UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library". Campus News. UC Berkeley. Archived from the original on August 26, 2014. Retrieved August 23, 2014.
28. ^ Heise, Kenan (July 6, 1996). "Henry Blakely, 79, 'Poet Of 63d Street'". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on February 13, 2018. Retrieved February 12, 2018.
29. ^ Rumore, Kori (July 25, 2021). "As first victim of Chicago's 1919 race riots finally receives a grave marker, here's a look at other notable people buried in Lincoln Cemetery". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on July 26, 2022. Retrieved July 25, 2021.
30. ^ "Remembering The Great Poet Gwendolyn Brooks At 100". NPR.org. Archived from the original on May 31, 2017. Retrieved May 23, 2018.
31. ^ "Gwendolyn Brooks" Archived August 7, 2020, at the Wayback Machine, Winners, Anisfield-Wolf Awards.
32. ^ a b c d e Harris, Trudier, ed. (1988), Afro-American Writers, 1940–1955, Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 76, Detroit: Gale Research Co., p. 23, ISBN 0810345544
33. ^ "Shelley Winners". Poetry Society of America. Archived from the original on October 5, 2017. Retrieved January 24, 2015.
34. ^ "Gwendolyn Brooks". National Women's Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on September 6, 2015. Retrieved June 5, 2017.
35. ^ "Frost Medalists". Poetry Society of America. Archived from the original on September 23, 2017. Retrieved June 5, 2017.
36. ^ "National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, Presenter of National Book Awards". www.nationalbook.org. Archived from the original on March 10, 2011. Retrieved June 5, 2017.
37. ^ "National Medal of Arts – Gwendolyn Brooks". National Endowment for the Arts. Archived from the original on February 26, 2014. Retrieved June 5, 2017.
38. ^ "1997 Laureate Interviews: Lincoln Academy Interview Gwendolyn Brooks". The Lincoln Academy of Illinois. 1997. Archived from the original on March 22, 2016. Retrieved May 31, 2017.
39. ^ "Academy of American Poets Fellowship". Academy of American Poets. Archived from the original on July 31, 2017. Retrieved July 31, 2017.
40. ^ "Eugenia Collier". Oxford American. Archived from the original on June 4, 2023. Retrieved October 3, 2023.
41. ^ Negro Digest, Jan. 1970, p. 50
42. ^ "About the Gwendolyn Brooks Cultural Center". Western Illinois University. Archived from the original on June 10, 2010. Retrieved March 29, 2010.
43. ^ Gwendolyn Brooks Center Archived February 25, 2015, at the Wayback Machine, Chicago State University.
44. ^ "Furious Flower Poetry Center". www.jmu.edu. Retrieved March 13, 2025.
45. ^ Gale, Neil (January 10, 2017). "The Digital Research Library of Illinois History Journal™: Chicagoan Gwendolyn Brooks, Pulitzer Prize Winning Poet, (1917–2000)". The Digital Research Library of Illinois History Journal™. Archived from the original on November 25, 2021. Retrieved November 25, 2021.
46. ^ "Gwendolyn Brooks' Biography". Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy. Archived from the original on June 6, 2017. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
47. ^ Asante, Molefi Kete (2002). 100 Greatest African Americans: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books. ISBN 1573929638.
48. ^ "History of Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School". Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School. Archived from the original on June 27, 2017. Retrieved June 29, 2017.
49. ^ "Illinois State Library". www.cyberdriveillinois.com. Archived from the original on June 7, 2017. Retrieved June 5, 2017.
50. ^ Staff (June 5, 2017). "Readings to mark Gwendolyn Brooks' 100th birthday". The State Journal-Register. Archived from the original on June 5, 2017. Retrieved June 9, 2017.
51. ^ "Statue Of Poet Gwendolyn Brooks To Be Unveiled On Her Birthday « CBS Chicago". Chicago.cbslocal.com. June 7, 2018. Archived from the original on June 14, 2018. Retrieved June 14, 2018.
52. ^ "Gwendolyn Brooks". chicagoliteraryhof.org. Archived from the original on March 31, 2019. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
53. ^ Schmich, Mary (May 2, 2012). "Poet left her stamp on Chicago". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on May 2, 2012. Retrieved May 3, 2012.
54. ^ Sophia Tareen and Errin Haines Whack, "Books, events mark late poet Gwendolyn Brooks 100th birthday"[permanent dead link], The State, June 6, 2017.
55. ^ Schoenberg, Nara (February 4, 2016). "Poets exalt a potent South Side voice as city celebrates Gwendolyn Brooks' birth". Chicago Tribune. p. 11, Section 1.
56. ^ "Gwendolyn Brooks – OMB100". gwendolynbrooks100.org. Archived from the original on July 2, 2017. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
57. ^ Patton, Katrina (June 13, 2018). "Gwendolyn Brooks: The Oracle of Bronzeville". The Chicago Defender. Archived from the original on June 15, 2018. Retrieved June 14, 2018.
58. ^ "Gwendolyn Brooks". statuesforequality.com. Archived from the original on April 15, 2021. Retrieved March 30, 2021.
59. ^ Hallwas, John (June 10, 2021). "Gwendolyn Brooks: Her poetry and our new memorial park". McDonough County Voice. Archived from the original on December 2, 2021. Retrieved December 2, 2021.
60. ^ "Gwendolyn Brooks: A Poet's Work In Community | The Morgan Library & Museum". www.themorgan.org. Retrieved July 28, 2025.

Further reading

[edit]

• Melhem, D. H. (1987). Gwendolyn Brooks: Poetry & the Heroic Voice. The University Press of Kentucky. Archived from the original on May 6, 2020. Retrieved June 18, 2024.
• Jackson, Angela (2017). A Surprised Queenhood in the New Black Sun: The Life & Legacy of Gwendolyn Brooks. Beacon Press. ISBN 978-0807025048.
• Share, Don, ed. (July 7, 2022). "Gwendolyn Brooks". Poetry (June 2017 ed.). Poetry Foundation.

External links

[edit] Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gwendolyn Brooks. Wikiquote has quotations related to Gwendolyn Brooks.

• Brooks Permissions | Official Licensing Agency for the works of Gwendolyn Brooks, Brooks Permissions
• Gwendolyn Brooks Online Resources at the Library of Congress
• Gwendolyn Brooks Illinois Poet Laureate, State of Illinois
• Henry Lyman, "Interview: Gwendolyn Brooks Captures Chicago 'Cool'", NPR
• Poems by Gwendolyn Brooks at PoetryFoundation.org
• Gwendolyn Brooks: Profile and Poems at Poets.org
• Some poems by Brooks, Circle Brotherhood Association, SUNY Buffalo
• Gwendolyn Brooks Archived December 17, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, Modern American Poetry
• Online guide to the Gwendolyn Brooks Papers, The Bancroft Library
• "The Book Writers" Poem, patterned after Brooks's "The Bean Eaters" and dedicated to Brooks and Haki R. Madhubuti
• Lifetime Honors – National Medal of Arts
• Audrey Cason, "An Interview with Gwendolyn Brooks", (1980 Kalliope, A journal of women's art and literature)
• Gwendolyn Brooks at Find a Grave
• Works by Gwendolyn Brooks at Open Library

Awards for Gwendolyn Brooks

v t e National Medal of Arts recipients (1990s) 1990 George Abbott Hume Cronyn Jessica Tandy Merce Cunningham Jasper Johns Jacob Lawrence Riley "B.B." King David Lloyd Kreeger Harris & Carroll Sterling Masterson Ian McHarg Beverly Sills Southeastern Bell Corporation 1991 Maurice Abravanel Roy Acuff Pietro Belluschi John Carter Brown III Charles "Honi" Coles John Crosby Richard Diebenkorn R. Philip Hanes Kitty Carlisle Hart Pearl Primus Isaac Stern Texaco 1992 Marilyn Horne James Earl Jones Allan Houser Minnie Pearl Robert Saudek Earl Scruggs Robert Shaw Billy Taylor Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown Robert Wise AT&T Lila Wallace 1993 Walter and Leonore Annenberg Cabell "Cab" Calloway Ray Charles Bess Lomax Hawes Stanley Kunitz Robert Merrill Arthur Miller Robert Rauschenberg Lloyd Richards William Styron Paul Taylor Billy Wilder 1994 Harry Belafonte Dave Brubeck Celia Cruz Dorothy DeLay Julie Harris Erick Hawkins Gene Kelly Pete Seeger Catherine Filene Shouse Wayne Thiebaud Richard Wilbur Young Audiences 1995 Licia Albanese Gwendolyn Brooks B. Gerald and Iris Cantor Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee David Diamond James Ingo Freed Bob Hope Roy Lichtenstein Arthur Mitchell Bill Monroe Urban Gateways 1996 Edward Albee Sarah Caldwell Harry Callahan Zelda Fichandler Eduardo "Lalo" Guerrero Lionel Hampton Bella Lewitzky Vera List Robert Redford Maurice Sendak Stephen Sondheim Boys Choir of Harlem 1997 Louise Bourgeois Betty Carter Agnes Gund Daniel Urban Kiley Angela Lansbury James Levine Tito Puente Jason Robards Edward Villella Doc Watson MacDowell Colony 1998 Jacques d'Amboise Antoine "Fats" Domino Ramblin' Jack Elliott Frank Gehry Barbara Handman Agnes Martin Gregory Peck Roberta Peters Philip Roth Sara Lee Corporation Steppenwolf Theatre Company Gwen Verdon 1999 Irene Diamond Aretha Franklin Michael Graves Odetta Juilliard School Norman Lear Rosetta LeNoire Harvey Lichtenstein Lydia Mendoza George Segal Maria Tallchief Complete list 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s v t e Inductees to the National Women's Hall of Fame 1970–1979 1973 Jane Addams Marian Anderson Susan B. Anthony Clara Barton Mary McLeod Bethune Elizabeth Blackwell Pearl S. Buck Rachel Carson Mary Cassatt Emily Dickinson Amelia Earhart Alice Hamilton Helen Hayes Helen Keller Eleanor Roosevelt Florence Sabin Margaret Chase Smith Elizabeth Cady Stanton Helen Brooke Taussig Harriet Tubman 1976 Abigail Adams Margaret Mead Mildred "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias 1979 Dorothea Dix Juliette Gordon Low Alice Paul Elizabeth Bayley Seton 1980–1989 1981 Margaret Sanger Sojourner Truth 1982 Carrie Chapman Catt Frances Perkins 1983 Belva Lockwood Lucretia Mott 1984 Mary "Mother" Harris Jones Bessie Smith 1986 Barbara McClintock Lucy Stone Harriet Beecher Stowe 1988 Gwendolyn Brooks Willa Cather Sally Ride Mary Risteau Ida B. Wells-Barnett 1990–1999 1990 Margaret Bourke-White Barbara Jordan Billie Jean King Florence B. Seibert 1991 Gertrude Belle Elion 1993 Ethel Percy Andrus Antoinette Blackwell Emily Blackwell Shirley Chisholm Jacqueline Cochran Ruth Colvin Marian Wright Edelman Alice Evans Betty Friedan Ella Grasso Martha Wright Griffiths Fannie Lou Hamer Dorothy Height Dolores Huerta Mary Putnam Jacobi Mae Jemison Mary Lyon Mary Mahoney Wilma Mankiller Constance Baker Motley Georgia O'Keeffe Annie Oakley Rosa Parks Esther Peterson Jeannette Rankin Ellen Swallow Richards Elaine Roulet Katherine Siva Saubel Gloria Steinem Helen Stephens Lillian Wald Madam C. J. Walker Faye Wattleton Rosalyn S. Yalow Gloria Yerkovich 1994 Bella Abzug Ella Baker Myra Bradwell Annie Jump Cannon Jane Cunningham Croly Catherine East Geraldine Ferraro Charlotte Perkins Gilman Grace Hopper Helen LaKelly Hunt Zora Neale Hurston Anne Hutchinson Frances Wisebart Jacobs Susette La Flesche Louise McManus Maria Mitchell Antonia Novello Linda Richards Wilma Rudolph Betty Bone Schiess Muriel Siebert Nettie Stevens Oprah Winfrey Sarah Winnemucca Fanny Wright 1995 Virginia Apgar Ann Bancroft Amelia Bloomer Mary Breckinridge Eileen Collins Elizabeth Hanford Dole Anne Dallas Dudley Mary Baker Eddy Ella Fitzgerald Margaret Fuller Matilda Joslyn Gage Lillian Moller Gilbreth Nannerl O. Keohane Maggie Kuhn Sandra Day O'Connor Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin Pat Schroeder Hannah Greenebaum Solomon 1996 Louisa May Alcott Charlotte Anne Bunch Frances Xavier Cabrini Mary A. Hallaren Oveta Culp Hobby Wilhelmina Cole Holladay Anne Morrow Lindbergh Maria Goeppert Mayer Ernestine Louise Potowski Rose Maria Tallchief Edith Wharton 1998 Madeleine Albright Maya Angelou Nellie Bly Lydia Moss Bradley Mary Steichen Calderone Mary Ann Shadd Cary Joan Ganz Cooney Gerty Cori Sarah Grimké Julia Ward Howe Shirley Ann Jackson Shannon Lucid Katharine Dexter McCormick Rozanne L. Ridgway Edith Nourse Rogers Felice Schwartz Eunice Kennedy Shriver Beverly Sills Florence Wald Angelina Grimké Weld Chien-Shiung Wu 2000–2009 2000 Faye Glenn Abdellah Emma Smith DeVoe Marjory Stoneman Douglas Mary Dyer Sylvia A. Earle Crystal Eastman Jeanne Holm Leontine T. Kelly Frances Oldham Kelsey Kate Mullany Janet Reno Anna Howard Shaw Sophia Smith Ida Tarbell Wilma L. Vaught Mary Edwards Walker Annie Dodge Wauneka Eudora Welty Frances E. Willard 2001 Dorothy H. Andersen Lucille Ball Rosalynn Carter Lydia Maria Child Bessie Coleman Dorothy Day Marian de Forest Althea Gibson Beatrice A. Hicks Barbara Holdridge Harriet Williams Russell Strong Emily Howell Warner Victoria Woodhull 2002 Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis Ruth Bader Ginsburg Katharine Graham Bertha Holt Mary Engle Pennington Mercy Otis Warren 2003 Linda G. Alvarado Donna de Varona Gertrude Ederle Martha Matilda Harper Patricia Roberts Harris Stephanie L. Kwolek Dorothea Lange Mildred Robbins Leet Patsy Takemoto Mink Sacagawea Anne Sullivan Sheila E. Widnall 2005 Florence E. Allen Ruth Fulton Benedict Betty Bumpers Hillary Clinton Rita Rossi Colwell Mother Marianne Cope Maya Y. Lin Patricia A. Locke Blanche Stuart Scott Mary Burnett Talbert 2007 Eleanor K. Baum Julia Child Martha Coffin Pelham Wright Swanee Hunt Winona LaDuke Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Judith L. Pipher Catherine Filene Shouse Henrietta Szold 2009 Louise Bourgeois Mildred Cohn Karen DeCrow Susan Kelly-Dreiss Allie B. Latimer Emma Lazarus Ruth Patrick Rebecca Talbot Perkins Susan Solomon Kate Stoneman 2010–2019 2011 St. Katharine Drexel Dorothy Harrison Eustis Loretta C. Ford Abby Kelley Foster Helen Murray Free Billie Holiday Coretta Scott King Lilly Ledbetter Barbara A. Mikulski Donna E. Shalala Kathrine Switzer 2013 Betty Ford Ina May Gaskin Julie Krone Kate Millett Nancy Pelosi Mary Joseph Rogers Bernice Sandler Anna Schwartz Emma Willard 2015 Tenley Albright Nancy Brinker Martha Graham Marcia Greenberger Barbara Iglewski Jean Kilbourne Carlotta Walls LaNier Philippa Marrack Mary Harriman Rumsey Eleanor Smeal 2017 Matilda Cuomo Temple Grandin Lorraine Hansberry Victoria Jackson Sherry Lansing Clare Boothe Luce Aimee Mullins Carol Mutter Janet Rowley Alice Waters 2019 Gloria Allred Angela Davis Sarah Deer Jane Fonda Nicole Malachowski Rose O'Neill Louise Slaughter Sonia Sotomayor Laurie Spiegel Flossie Wong-Staal 2020–2029 2020 Aretha Franklin Barbara Hillary Barbara Rose Johns Henrietta Lacks Toni Morrison Mary Church Terrell 2022 Octavia E. Butler Judy Chicago Rebecca S. Halstead Mia Hamm Joy Harjo Emily Howland Katherine Johnson Indra Nooyi Michelle Obama 2024 Patricia Bath Ruby Bridges Elouise P. Cobell Kimberlé Crenshaw Peggy McIntosh Judith Plaskow Loretta Ross Sandy Stone Anna Wessels Williams Serena Williams v t e Pulitzer Prize for Poetry 1922–1950 Collected Poems by Edwin Arlington Robinson (1922) "The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver," "A Few Figs from Thistles," and "Eight Sonnets" by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1923) New Hampshire by Robert Frost (1924) The Man Who Died Twice by Edwin Arlington Robinson (1925) What's O'Clock by Amy Lowell (1926) Fiddler's Farewell by Leonora Speyer (1927) Tristram by Edwin Arlington Robinson (1928) John Brown's Body by Stephen Vincent Benét (1929) Selected Poems by Conrad Aiken (1930) Collected Poems by Robert Frost (1931) The Flowering Stone by George Dillon (1932) Conquistador by Archibald MacLeish (1933) Collected Verse by Robert Hillyer (1934) Bright Ambush by Audrey Wurdemann (1935) Strange Holiness by Robert P. T. Coffin (1936) A Further Range by Robert Frost (1937) Cold Morning Sky by Marya Zaturenska (1938) Selected Poems by John Gould Fletcher (1939) Collected Poems by Mark Van Doren (1940) Sunderland Capture by Leonard Bacon (1941) The Dust Which Is God by William Rose Benét (1942) A Witness Tree by Robert Frost (1943) Western Star by Stephen Vincent Benét (1944) V-Letter and Other Poems by Karl Shapiro (1945) Lord Weary's Castle by Robert Lowell (1947) The Age of Anxiety by W. H. Auden (1948) Terror and Decorum by Peter Viereck (1949) Annie Allen by Gwendolyn Brooks (1950) 1951–1975 Complete Poems by Carl Sandburg (1951) Collected Poems by Marianne Moore (1952) Collected Poems 1917–1952 by Archibald MacLeish (1953) The Waking by Theodore Roethke (1954) Collected Poems by Wallace Stevens (1955) Poems by Elizabeth Bishop (1956) Things of This World by Richard Wilbur (1957) Promises by Robert Penn Warren (1958) Selected Poems 1928–1958 by Stanley Kunitz (1959) Heart's Needle by W. D. Snodgrass (1960) Times Three by Phyllis McGinley (1961) Poems by Alan Dugan (1962) Pictures from Brueghel by William Carlos Williams (1963) At the End of the Open Road by Louis Simpson (1964) 77 Dream Songs by John Berryman (1965) Selected Poems by Richard Eberhart (1966) Live or Die by Anne Sexton (1967) The Hard Hours by Anthony Hecht (1968) Of Being Numerous by George Oppen (1969) Untitled Subjects by Richard Howard (1970) The Carrier of Ladders by W. S. Merwin (1971) Collected Poems by James Wright (1972) Up Country by Maxine Kumin (1973) The Dolphin by Robert Lowell (1974) Turtle Island by Gary Snyder (1975) 1976–2000 Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror by John Ashbery (1976) Divine Comedies by James Merrill (1977) Collected Poems by Howard Nemerov (1978) Now and Then by Robert Penn Warren (1979) Selected Poems by Donald Justice (1980) The Morning of the Poem by James Schuyler (1981) The Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath (1982) Selected Poems by Galway Kinnell (1983) American Primitive by Mary Oliver (1984) Yin by Carolyn Kizer (1985) The Flying Change by Henry S. Taylor (1986) Thomas and Beulah by Rita Dove (1987) Partial Accounts: New and Selected Poems by William Meredith (1988) New and Collected Poems by Richard Wilbur (1989) The World Doesn't End by Charles Simic (1990) Near Changes by Mona Van Duyn (1991) Selected Poems by James Tate (1992) The Wild Iris by Louise Glück (1993) Neon Vernacular by Yusef Komunyakaa (1994) The Simple Truth by Philip Levine (1995) The Dream of the Unified Field by Jorie Graham (1996) Alive Together by Lisel Mueller (1997) Black Zodiac by Charles Wright (1998) Blizzard of One by Mark Strand (1999) Repair by C. K. Williams (2000) 2001–2025 Different Hours by Stephen Dunn (2001) Practical Gods by Carl Dennis (2002) Moy Sand and Gravel by Paul Muldoon (2003) Walking to Martha's Vineyard by Franz Wright (2004) Delights & Shadows by Ted Kooser (2005) Late Wife by Claudia Emerson (2006) Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey (2007) Time and Materials by Robert Hass (2008) Failure by Philip Schultz (2008) The Shadow of Sirius by W. S. Merwin (2009) Versed by Rae Armantrout (2010) The Best of It by Kay Ryan (2011) Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith (2012) Stag's Leap by Sharon Olds (2013) 3 Sections by Vijay Seshadri (2014) Digest by Gregory Pardlo (2015) Ozone Journal by Peter Balakian (2016) Olio by Tyehimba Jess (2017) Half-light by Frank Bidart (2018) Be With by Forrest Gander (2019) The Tradition by Jericho Brown (2020) Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz (2021) frank by Diane Seuss (2022) Then the War by Carl Phillips (2023) Tripas by Brandon Som (2024) New and Selected Poems by Marie Howe (2025)

v t e Poets laureate / consultants in poetry to the Library of Congress

Joseph Auslander (1937) Allen Tate (1943) Robert Penn Warren (1944) Louise Bogan (1945) Karl Shapiro (1946) Robert Lowell (1947) Léonie Adams (1948) Elizabeth Bishop (1949) Conrad Aiken (1950) William Carlos Williams (1952) Randall Jarrell (1956) Robert Frost (1958) Richard Eberhart (1959) Louis Untermeyer (1961) Howard Nemerov (1963) Reed Whittemore (1964) Stephen Spender (1965) James Dickey (1966) William Jay Smith (1968) William Stafford (1970) Josephine Jacobsen (1971) Daniel Hoffman (1973) Stanley Kunitz (1974) Robert Hayden (1976) William Meredith (1978) Maxine Kumin (1981) Anthony Hecht (1982) Reed Whittemore (1984) Robert Fitzgerald (1984) Gwendolyn Brooks (1985) Robert Penn Warren (1986) Richard Wilbur (1987) Howard Nemerov (1988) Mark Strand (1990) Joseph Brodsky (1991) Mona Van Duyn (1992) Rita Dove (1993) Robert Hass (1995) Robert Pinsky (1997) Rita Dove, Louise Glück & W. S. Merwin (1999) Stanley Kunitz (2000) Billy Collins (2001) Louise Glück (2003) Ted Kooser (2004) Donald Hall (2006) Charles Simic (2007) Kay Ryan (2008–2010) W. S. Merwin (2010–2011) Philip Levine (2011–2012) Natasha Trethewey (2012–2014) Charles Wright (2014–2015) Juan Felipe Herrera (2015–2017) Tracy K. Smith (2017–2019) Joy Harjo (2019–2022) Ada Limón (2022-2025) Arthur Sze (2025-present)

v t e Poets laureate of Illinois
Howard Austin (1936–1962) Carl Sandburg (1962–1967) Gwendolyn Brooks (1968–2000) Kevin Stein (2003–2017) Angela Jackson (2020–present)

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