Gwendolyn Brooks

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Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brooks (born June 7, 1917 in Topeka , Kansas , † December 3, 2000 in Chicago , Illinois ) was an American writer. In 1968 she became the Poet Laureate of Illinois.

biography

Gwendolyn Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas, but her parents moved to Chicago when she was six weeks old. That's where she grew up too. She first began publishing in the Chicago Defender , a newspaper for Americans of African descent. In 1950 she was the first black woman to be awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for her volume of poetry Annie Allen . In 1976 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters . Brooks has received more than 75 honorary awards from universities and colleges worldwide.

It was included in the anthology Daughters of Africa , edited in 1992 by Margaret Busby in London and New York.

Brooks writes her poems in the form of ballads , sonnets , but does not allow herself to be restricted by traditional forms. There are also poems in free form or with blues rhythms. Many of her poems deal with the life of the poor in Chicago. Her best-known poem is We Real Cool , which can also be found in many English-language school books. She is considered one of the leaders of the Black Arts movement.

Brooks view of poetry was the following: To something great produce, write one must not epic work because true greatness in a small haiku can be found, the five or seven syllables is long ( "bigness can be found in a little haiku, five syllables, seven syllables. ").

Works

  • A Street in Bronzeville (1945)
  • Annie Allen (1949)
  • Maud Martha (1953) (Fiction)
  • Bronzeville Boys and Girls (1956)
  • The Bean Eaters (1960)
  • Selected Poems (1963)
  • We Real Cool (1966)
  • The Wall (1967)
  • In the Mecca (1968)
  • Family Pictures (1970)
  • Black Steel: Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali (1971)
  • The World of Gwendolyn Brooks (1971)
  • Aloneness (1971)
  • Report from Part One: An Autobiography (1972) (Prose)
  • A Capsule Course in Black Poetry Writing (1975) (Prose)
  • Aurora (1972)
  • Beckonings (1975)
  • Black Love (1981)
  • To Disembark (1981)
  • Primer for Blacks (1981) (Prose)
  • Young Poet's Primer (1981) (Prose)
  • Very Young Poets (1983) (Prose)
  • The Near-Johannesburg Boy and Other Poems (1986)
  • Blacks (1987)
  • Winnie (1988)
  • Children Coming Home (1991)

literature

  • Martha E. Rhynes: Gwendolyn Brooks: Poet from Chicago. Morgan Reynolds Pub, Greensboro, NC 2003, ISBN 1-931798-05-2 .
  • Zofia Burr: Of Women, Poetry, and Power: Strategies of Address in Dickinson, Miles, Brooks, Lorde, and Angelou . Univ. of Illinois Press, Urbana, Ill. u. a. 2002, ISBN 0-252-02769-8 .
  • Harold Bloom: Gwendolyn Brooks, Chelsea House Publishing, Philadelphia 2000, ISBN 0-7910-5656-2 .
  • DH Melhem: Gwendolyn Brooks: Poetry and the Heroic Voice. University Press of Kentucky, 1987, ISBN 0-8131-1605-8 .
  • Harry B. Shaw: Gwendolyn Brooks . Twayne, Boston 1980, ISBN 0-8057-7287-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Members: Gwendolyn Brooks. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed February 18, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Brooks, Gwendolyn
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH June 7, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Topeka
DATE OF DEATH December 3, 2000
Place of death Chicago