Gwendolyn Brooks :: Biography Biographies Essays

Gwendolyn Brooks Although she was born on 7 June 1917 in Topeka, Kansas--the offset child of David and Keziah Brooks--Gwendolyn Brooks is a Chicagoan. The family go to Chicago unawares after her birth, and despite her extensive travels and periods in most of the major universities of the country, she has remained associated with the citys randomness Side. What her strong family unit lacked in material wealthiness was made sufferable by the wealth of human capital that resulted from secure interpersonal relationships. When she writes around families that--despite their daily adversities--are not dysfunctional, Gwendolyn Brooks writes from an intimate noesis reinforced by her own life.Brooks attended Hyde Park higher(prenominal) School, the leading snow-clad high school in the city, but transferred to the all-black Wendell Phillips, therefore to the integrated Englewood full(prenominal) School. In 1936 she graduated from Wilson Junior College. These four schools gave her a perspective on racial dynamics in the city that continues to exercise her work.Her profound pursuance in poetry informed much of her beforehand(predicate) life. Eventide, her initiative poem, was create in American Childhood Magazine in 1930. A hardly a(prenominal) years later she met James Weldon Johnson and Langston Hughes, who urged her to read fresh poetry--especially the work of Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, and e. c. cummings--and who punctuate the need to write as much and as frequently as she possibly could. By 1934 Brooks had become an concomitant member of the staff of the Chicago Defender and had published almost star hundred of her poems in a weekly poetry column.In 1938 she get married Henry Blakely and locomote to a kitchenette apartment on Chicagos South Side. amid the birth of her original child, Henry, Jr., in 1940 and the birth of Nora in 1951, she became associated with the crowd of writers entangled in Harriet Monroes still-extant verse line A Maga zine of Verse. From this group she received unless encouragement, and by 1943 she had won the Midwestern Writers Conference Poetry Award.In 1945 her first deem of poetry, A Street in Bronzeville (published by Harper and Row), brought her arcminute critical acclaim. She was selected one of Mademoiselle magazines Ten schoolboyish Women of the Year, she won her first Guggenheim Fellowship, and she became a fellow of the American Academy of liberal arts and Letters. Her second book of poems, Annie Allen (1949), won Poetry magazines Eunice Tietjens Prize. In 1950 Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize.Gwendolyn Brooks Biography Biographies EssaysGwendolyn Brooks Although she was born on 7 June 1917 in Topeka, Kansas--the first child of David and Keziah Brooks--Gwendolyn Brooks is a Chicagoan. The family moved to Chicago shortly after her birth, and despite her extensive travels and periods in some of the major universities of the country, she ha s remained associated with the citys South Side. What her strong family unit lacked in material wealth was made bearable by the wealth of human capital that resulted from warm interpersonal relationships. When she writes about families that--despite their daily adversities--are not dysfunctional, Gwendolyn Brooks writes from an intimate knowledge reinforced by her own life.Brooks attended Hyde Park High School, the leading white high school in the city, but transferred to the all-black Wendell Phillips, then to the integrated Englewood High School. In 1936 she graduated from Wilson Junior College. These four schools gave her a perspective on racial dynamics in the city that continues to influence her work.Her profound interest in poetry informed much of her early life. Eventide, her first poem, was published in American Childhood Magazine in 1930. A few years later she met James Weldon Johnson and Langston Hughes, who urged her to read modern poetry--especially the work of Ezra Poun d, T. S. Eliot, and e. c. cummings--and who emphasized the need to write as much and as frequently as she possibly could. By 1934 Brooks had become an adjunct member of the staff of the Chicago Defender and had published almost one hundred of her poems in a weekly poetry column.In 1938 she married Henry Blakely and moved to a kitchenette apartment on Chicagos South Side. Between the birth of her first child, Henry, Jr., in 1940 and the birth of Nora in 1951, she became associated with the group of writers involved in Harriet Monroes still-extant Poetry A Magazine of Verse. From this group she received further encouragement, and by 1943 she had won the Midwestern Writers Conference Poetry Award.In 1945 her first book of poetry, A Street in Bronzeville (published by Harper and Row), brought her instant critical acclaim. She was selected one of Mademoiselle magazines Ten Young Women of the Year, she won her first Guggenheim Fellowship, and she became a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her second book of poems, Annie Allen (1949), won Poetry magazines Eunice Tietjens Prize. In 1950 Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize.