Gwendolyn Brooks Research Paper

1018 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Gwendolyn brooks the mother summary

Gwendolyn Brooks was an extremely influential poet. Her poems inspired many people. Brooks’ career started after publishing her first poem Eventide. This poem started Brooks’ career as a well-known American poet. Gwendolyn Brooks was born on June 7, 1917 in Topeka, Kansas, to KeziahWims Brooks and David Anderson Brooks. Brooks’ family didn’t have much income. Her father David Brooks was a janitor. Keziah Brooks, Gwendolyn’s mother was a school teacher. Soon after Gwendolyn was born her family moved away from Kansas. The Brooks family relocated to Chicago, Illinois, where Brooks remained the rest of her life. Brooks, as a child, loved to read. She was encouraged by her family and friends to do so. She spent most of her childhood immersed in her writing. Gwendolyn became a published poet at an early age. At age 13, Brooks’ poem Eventide was published. Her poem appeared in …show more content…

In 1943, Brooks was extremely excited about an award she’d received. She received the Midwestern Writer’s Conference Award (Gwendolyn Brooks: Poet from Chicago 37). Brooks writing was loved by many universities. Chicago loved Brooks’ writing so much; they established a Gwendolyn Brooks Center on their campus (J.Williams 28). Brooks received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Endowment for the arts. This award was awarded to Brooksfor numerous reasons. After receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award, in 1994 they awarded Brooks the government’s highest honor for achievement in the humanities: the Jefferson Lecturer (Bloom 14).In 1950, Gwendolyn Brooks won the Pulitzer Prize. Gwendolyn Brooks was the first African American to win this award. She received the award for her second collection of poetry, which was entitled Annie Allen (A.Williams 1). In 1985, Brooks received a special honor. Brooks received the honor of being named as Poetry Consultant. The library of Congress gave Brooks this awesome honor (J.Williams

Show More
Related

  • Gwendolyn Brooks Research Paper

    527 Words  | 2 Pages

    Gwendolyn Brooks is one of the most respected and established poets of all time. Gwendolyn Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas, on June 7, 1917. Shortly after her birth her family moved to Chicago, Illinois where she was raised. Gwendolyn Brooks’ parents were very supportive of their daughter’s passion for reading and writing. Gwendolyn Brooks had a true gift from God and it was writing. Gwendolyn Brooks’ mother discovered her talent for writing when she was seven. When she was thirteen she published her poem, “Eventide” which appeared in American Childhood. (Bio.com)

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Remembering Nat Turner By Sterling Allen Brown

    318 Words  | 1 Pages

    The author was born in Washington D.C. on May 1, 1901. Later, he received a bachelor’s degree from Williams College where he studied traditional literature and explored music like Jazz and the Blues; then had gotten his masters at Harvard. The author is a professor of African American English at Harvard University. The author’s writing

    Read More

  • Gwendolyn Brooks' We Real Cool

    1359 Words  | 3 Pages

    Another part of her life came as she married Henry Blakely just two years after she graduated from college. At the age of twenty-three, Brooks had her first child, Henry, Jr., and by 1943, she had won the Midwestern Writers Conference Poetry Award. Her first book of poetry, published in 1945, altered a commonly held view about the production of black arts in America but also brought her instant critical acclaim. In addition, she has accompanied several other awards, which includes two Guggenheim awards, appointment as Poet Laureate of Illinois, and the National Endowment for the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award. Brooks was the first African-American writer both win the Pulitzer Prize and to be appointed to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Brooks received more than fifty honorary doctorates from colleges and universities. Her first teaching job was at a poetry workshop at Columbia College in Chicago. In 1969, the Gwendolyn Brooks Cultural Center opened on the campus of Western Illinois University. She went on to teach creative writing at a number of institutions including Northeastern Illinois University...

    Read More

  • Sadie And Maud Comparison

    972 Words  | 2 Pages

    The poem Sadie and Maud was written by Gwendolyn Brooks and is included in her first volume of poetry known as A Street in Bronzeville. Gwendolyn was born in Topeka, Kansas in 1917, but moved to Chicago at a young age. Her first poem was published when she was thirteen years old, and it was called Eventide. By the time Gwendolyn was seventeen, she was publishing poems for the Chicago Defender, a newspaper for the black population. After attending junior college, Gwendolyn began writing the poems that were included in her first collection, A Street in Bronzeville”, which was published in 1945. These poems focused on portraying the black urban poor. In the 1940s, when these

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Sadie And Maude By Gwendolyn Brooks

    712 Words  | 2 Pages

    Gwendolyn Brooks was an American poet who was born in Topeka, Kansas but raised in Chicago, Illinois. She was recognized as the first black author to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1950. She grew up in an African-American neighborhood on the Southside of Chicago where there were limited opportunities for African-American women. For example, around six out of ten African-American women were employed in jobs that provided small wages, while less than one percent held professional positions such as teachers in segregated schools. In “Sadie and Maud”, Brooks compares and contrasts two sisters who have made different lifestyle choices and how their decisions have impacted them their lives. Although there were many limitations and expectations for African-American

    Read More

  • Maud Martha

    1104 Words  | 3 Pages

    Gwendolyn Brooks was a black poet from Kansas who wrote in the early twentieth century. She was the first black woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize. Her writings deal mostly with the black experience growing up in inner Chicago. This is the case with one of her more famous works, Maud Martha. Maud Martha is a story that illustrates the many issues that a young black girl faces while growing up in a ‘white, male driven’ society. One aspect of Martha that is strongly emphasized on the book is her low self-image and lack of self-esteem. Martha feels that she is inferior for several reasons, but it is mainly the social pressures that she faces and her own blackness that contribute to these feelings of inferiority. It is through these depictions that we are able to identify with the feelings of the writer. Gwendolyn Brooks wrote an autobiography that reveals many her attitudes, tendencies and criticisms. Martha, in Brooks’ stories has a low self-esteem. This lack of self is directly related to her being black. Brooks’ experiences growing up are the key influence in the writing of Maud Martha

    Read More

  • Gwendolyn Brooks

    1064 Words  | 3 Pages

    Gwendolyn Brooks is the female poet who has been most responsive to changes in the black community, particularly in the community’s vision of itself. The first African American to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize; she was considered one of America’s most distinguished poets well before the age of fifty. Known for her technical artistry, she has succeeded in forms as disparate as Italian terza rima and the blues. She has been praised for her wisdom and insight into the African Experience in America. Her works reflect both the paradises and the hells of the black people of the world. Her writing is objective, but her characters speak for themselves. Although the idiom is local, the message is universal. Brooks uses ordinary speech, only words that will strengthen, and richness of sound to create effective poetry.

    Read More

  • Poet, Gwendolyn Brooks Uses Social Issues to Connect with the Reader in “Fight First, Then Fiddle” and “We Real Cool”

    663 Words  | 2 Pages

    The same author Gwendolyn Brooks writes the poems “Fight First, Then Fiddle” and “We Real cool”. I am about to explain to you of how the author uses social issues through of the two poems I am referring to connect to her readers.

    Read More

  • Comparisons and Contrasts of Phillis Wheatley and Paul Laurence Dunbar

    675 Words  | 2 Pages

    The purpose of this essay is to clearly acknowledge similarities as well as differences amongst two great writers: Phyllis Wheatley and Paul L. Dunbar. Wheatley and Dunbar were two brilliant African American writers born of two different centuries. Both began writing at an early age and were seen as black child prodigies of their times.

    Read More

  • Analysis of The Mother by Gwendolyn Brooks

    429 Words  | 1 Pages

    Brooks was the first child of David and Keziah Brooks. She was born on June 7, 1917 in Topeka, Kansas. Brooks wrote her first poem when she was 13 years old and was published in the children’s. Moreover she was the first black author to win the Pulitzer prize. magazine. In 1938 she was married to Henry Blakely and had two children. After a long battle of cancer Brooks died in December 3, 2000.

    Read More

  • leah

    813 Words  | 2 Pages

    Maya Angelou is well known today for her poetry. She is a very inspirational woman that poems speak to many young women still today. Maya Angelou is one of those people that everyone loves and not many could ever have anything negative to say. She went through hard times as a child that later made her a better poet.

    Read More

  • Maud Martha, by Gwendolyn Brooks

    2920 Words  | 6 Pages

    Pulitzer Prize- winning author, Gwendolyn Brooks has gained much attention, but not without comparable controversy and criticism (Appiah 313).  The Chicago-based author has built a sturdy reputation in both mainstream and African American literary circles.   Nonetheless, her more popular works has won most of the poet laureate's recognition.  "No white poet of her quality is so undervalued, so unpardonably unread.  She ought to be widely appreciated... as one of our most remarkable woman poets" ("Voices").  Brooks challenged the existing approach to romanticism, the fairy tale nature of the Amer...

    Read More

  • The Harlem Renaissance

    1518 Words  | 4 Pages

    James Weldon Johnson, Countee Cullen, Claude Mckay, Jean (Eugene) Tommer, Langston Hughes, Sterling Brown, Robert Hayden, and Gwendolyn Brooks, again, all were very excellent Poets who took pride In what they did, for the people they did it for and for themselves.

    Read More

  • The Influence of Religion in Phillis Wheatley's Life

    1460 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...t social injustices (Weidt 53). Because of her quest for freedom, she gave way to writers such as Gwendolyn Brooks and Countee Cullen. Countee Cullen wrote "Heritage," which mixes themes of freedom, Africa, and religion. It can be said, then, that he gave way to writers such as Gwendolyn Brooks wrote "Negro Hero," which is about the status of the African American during the 1940s. Clearly, these poets followed the first steps taken by Phillis Wheatley towards speaking out against social issues, and today's poetry is a result of the continuation to speak out against them

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of Natasha Trethewey's Poetry

    719 Words  | 2 Pages

    Natasha Trethewey is an accomplished poet who is currently serving as United States Poet Laureate appointed by the Library of Congress and won the Pulitzer Prize for her collection of poems, Native Guard in 2007. She grew up mixed race, black and white, in Gulfport, Mississippi, and when her parent’s divorced she moved with her mother to Atlanta. Her mother, Gwen, remarried and at a young age Natasha was a eyewitness in the physical and psychological abuse that her new stepfather hurled upon her mother. After graduating from high school, Natasha set off to go to school in Athens, Georgia at the University of Georgia. During Trethewey’s freshman year, her mother was murdered by her stepfather and she works through her grief by writing poetry

    Read More

More about Gwendolyn Brooks Research Paper

Open Document