Gwendolyn Brooks – Chicago Poet Laureate

Poet Gwendolyn Brooks was born in Topeka Kansas on June 7, 1917, but moved to Chicago as a young child. She made Chicago her home base and her true home in every sense of the word. As a child growing up on Chicago’s South Side she would sit on her porch and write poetry and stories, and as an African American woman living on Chicago’s South Side in the mid-20th century, she saw the struggles that African Americans endured and these struggles are what she wrote about.

Gwendolyn Brooks achieved a lot of firsts in her lifetime. She was the first black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize; the first to be a poetry consultant to the Library of Congress, and she served as Illinois poet laureate for over 30 years. Some of her works include: “Annie Allen” – a collection of poetry about a black girl becoming a woman while encountering racism and other difficulties of urban life. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for this collection; “A Street in Bronzeville”; “Maud Martha”; “In The Mecca”; “Riot”; and “Aloneness”. Through these works and many others, Brooks showed that poetry and writing could change the world and make it a better place.

Her legacy continues and she is still achieving firsts. Last Thursday (on what would have been her 101st birthday) Gwendolyn Brooks was honored with a statue and memorial at Brooks Park in North Kenwood on South Greenwood Avenue. She is the first Chicago African American poet honored with a statue and memorial in a Chicago public park. The statue was done by sculptor Margot McMahon. Ms. McMahon worked closely with Gwendolyn Brooks daughter to design a statue of Brooks that would meaningfully portray and preserve her legacy. It is a statue of the poet and the porch she wrote on as a child.

• Photos are from Wikipedia (unless otherwise specified)