Gwendolyn Brooks was one of the many great writers. In her early poetry, Brooks attacked racial discrimination, praised African American heroes, and satirized booth blacks and whites. She showed great mastery of classic and Modernist poetic techniques.
Gwendolyn Brooks was born on June 7,1917 in Topeka, Kansas. She grew up in the Chicago community called Bronzeville (Brooks 1). Gwendolyn Brooks parents was David and Kiziah Brooks. Her mother was a school teacher. Gwendolyn's father was the only family member to graduate from high school. Her parents encouraged her to express herself through art (Sickels 2).
David Brooks, her farther, supported the family as a janitor and house painter. His wages was barely sufficient to meet the family's needs, he was never unemployed. Gwendolyn look at her farther as a powerful man (Life 1). After graduating high school in Oklahoma, he had attended Fisk University for a year and dreamed of becoming a doctor but lacked money for tuition. Her father meant everything to her(Farther 1).
Keziah Brooks, a former school teacher from Topeka, Kansas, read to Gwendolyn and Raymond and entertained them by drawing pictures (Brooks 4). She did anything to make sure her children was happy. Keziah expected her children to do good in school. David and Keziah brooks influenced Gwendolyn's love for reading and writing poetry. Her father often recited poems to her and her brother (Life 2).
By age 7, Brooks was writing two line verses. She filled notebooks with poems at age 11(Biography 1). By the age of thirteen she published her first poem in the magazine "American Childhood". During her years in high school, she met the poet James Weldon Johnson who encouraged her to read and emulate poets like ...
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... to reside in Chicago, the city which she had given so much. She was a teacher, critic, and inspirational speaker to many people(Life 3).
Days after being diagnosed with cancer, Gwendolyn experienced a sudden stroke. Instead of going to the hospital, she chose to stay in her own home. With friends and family at her bedside, talking to her and sometimes reading to her. Gwendolyn Brooks died at age 83 on December 3, 2000 (Death 1).
Works Cited
Brooks,Gwendolyn, Biographical Notes. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2003.
Brooks, Gwendolyn. Biographical of Gwendolyn Brooks. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2003.
Brooks, Gwendolyn. Poet form Chicago. Chicago: Morgan Reynolds Inc. 2003
"Brooks, Gwendolyn." Work Book Online Infofinder. World Book, 2014. Web.28 Apr.2014
Sickels, Amy and Harold Bloom. Biography of Gwendolyn Brooks. New York City: Infobase Publishing,2005.
Frances E.W. Harper and James Whitfield are two of the most influential anti-slavery poets of all time. Both individuals use poetry as a form of resistance and as a way to express themselves during a time of great racial tension. Their poems reach out to many different audiences, shedding light on racial injustices that were present in America. Harper’s and Whitfield’s poetry, like many other works that were written during this time, help us to better comprehend the effects of slavery on African Americans.
Gwendolyn Brooks’ did not let her hurdles in life slow her down. In fact, Brooks’ used her obstacles to her advantage, and sprinted towards the finish line. Gwendolyn faced financial struggles, and limited opportunities due to her racial background. However, Brooks’ achieved many accomplishments and used her African American heritage to become one of America’s best poetic authors. Gwendolyn Brooks has said that her poetry was written for blacks and about blacks, yet any person of any race can relate to the universal themes portrayed in her pieces.
Dorothy Day was born on November 8,1897 in Brooklyn, New York. She was raised in San Francisco. Dorothy read almost her whole local library. She read all the time and she was deeply affected about what she read. She read about many social problems that inspired her to do good.
Born in Texas, on July 8th, 1902, Gwendolyn Bennett had always been interested and passionate for writing and art. Bennett was the child of two educators, who taught on a Native American reserve in Nevada, but was kidnapped by her father once her parents divorced and her mother was awarded custody. She then settled in Brooklyn where she became the first African-American member of the Girl’s High School’s theatre and literature student organizations. Bennett was highly successful at her school; she was awarded first place in a school-wide art competition, wrote a play and acted in it, while writing her class graduation speech and song. She blossomed alongside the Harlem Renaissance, becoming of age as the Harlem Renaissance gained traction.
One might wonder why Brooks produces poetry, especially the sonnet, if she also condemns it. I would suggest that by critically reckoning the costs of sonnet-making Brooks brings to her poetry a self-awareness that might justify it after all. She creates a poetry that, like the violin playing she invokes, sounds with "hurting love." This "hurting love" reminds us of those who may have been hurt in the name of the love for poetry. But in giving recognition to that hurt, it also fulfills a promise of poetry: to be more than a superficial social "grace," to teach us something we first did not, or did not wish to, see.
In the autobiography Brown Girl Dreaming, written by Jacqueline Woodson, an African-American girl grows up in the 60’s and begins to find herself with the help of friends and family. Individuality is a topic that connects the book to me because Jacqueline and I have both gone through situations where we felt like we had to be someone else to make the people around us happier. Maturing and individuality go hand in hand.
The most important legacy of Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks is the influence that her poems and teachings have on others. Brooks won numerous awards for the poetry that she wrote. In addition to that, she believed that the idea that a poem communicates is more important than prizes that a poet may earn. Also, in addition to being a poet, Brooks was a college professor. She taught college students the importance of clarity in writing poetry. Many of the students that she taught eventually moved on to write their own poetry. Gwendolyn Brooks continues to influence current generations and will continue to influence many generations to come.
Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool” explores the lives of rebellious teenage kids who are only defined by their action. Their actions are due only because of the teenage kids being together and wanting to prove their rebellion to each other. The underlying theme throughout this poem is the identity of these teenagers together and that their individual identities are slowly being stripped because of themselves; which puts them on a different ends of society’s expectations of the teenagers vs what they want to do with their young lives.
In “We Real Cool” written by by Gwendolyn Brooks, Brooks adds to the meaning and tone of the poem by showing a theme that doing rebellious things gets you no where in life, even if it is considered “cool”. Brooks’ poem is about a group of people who do bad things like “leaving school” and “lurking late”. In the end of the poem, they say “We die soon”. In “We Real Cool”, Brooks is communicating that even if you’re “cool”, bad behavior ends up hurting you more that helping you. In the beginning of the poem, Brooks follows up after saying “We Real Cool” with “We Left School”. This helps establish the tone of a lostness because the narrorator is revealing that the only way he/she felt they could ‘be cool’ was to leave school with his ‘group’. Continueing
...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
Brooks was A poet in the 1940s where she influenced many races and religions because of her writing. In Brooks’s poetry she received many prestigious awards and, less formally, has been celebrated by other poets. This is showing that other poets look up to her because of how influential and wise she is. Not only was Brooks one of the best African American poets ever but she is in the conversation for the best for any race. This is showing something, because in Brooks’s time people looked at African Americans differently because of race and other stuff like being wealthy or poor but for Brooks every race looked at her as a influential great poet. The reasons for this is because of how Brooks fought for her race and showed many people that everyone is the same. For Brooks this is one of the many things that she has done that is influential. This is making Brooks a one of a kind poet because of no other poet can match what she has done.
When it comes to black literature, I only can connect to three writers May Angelou, Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks. All three of these writers talk about things I can relate to. All three of these writers wrote poems, so people can see their pain and what they were going thru. Maya Angelou was a famous black poet and an award-winning author. She had a lot of talents such as screenwriting, dancing, singing and being a civil rights activist. She was known for a famous poem I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings. Maya Angelou wrote a lot of beautiful poems for the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement. Langston Hughes was a black poet that was a novelist and playwriter. Langston was one of the first poets to use the art form of jazz poetry.
Whether you are pro-choice or not abortion has always been a very controversial subject. Thirty-five million abortions occur just in developing countries, and approximately twenty million of those thirty-five million are unsafe abortions. All leading to sixty-seven thousand lives claimed because of an abortion. (Curtis) In the poem “The Mother”, by Gwendolyn Brooks, the speaker of the story is a woman who is being portrayed as someone who has multiple abortions. You can see this as being more than one abortion because she states “I have heard in the voices of the wind the voices of my dim killed children”. (Brooks 545) The poem is written almost as if she has some regrets for having the abortions but the more you read the least regretful she seems because she states “Since anyhow you are dead. Or rather, or instead, you were never made.”(Brooks 545)
Rebellion is simply the resistance to or defiance of any authority, control or tradition. (Sandi Amorim, para 1, n.d.). Rebellion can be expressed in many different forms, and in this case, it is poetry. The poems, “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks, “Theme for English B” and “Let America Be America Again” by Langston Hughes, all have a distinct display of rebellion.