2.  Born June 7, 1917 in
Topeka, Kansas
 Grew up on the
South Side of
Chicago
 Started reading
poetry and writing it
at an early age
 Wrote her first poem
“Eventide” at the
age of 13

3.  She attended three
different high schools
 At age 17, she was
frequently publishing
poems in the
Chicago Defender
 Graduated from
Wilson Junior College

4.  Married Henry L.
Blakely
 Had a son, Henry Jr.,
and a daughter,
Nora.
 Died from cancer on
December 3, 2000.

5.  First African
American to win
Pulitzer Prize for
poetry
 Invited by JFK to
read at the Library of
Congress poetry
festival in 1962
 Appointed of poet
laureate of Illinois in
1968

6.  Selected by the
National Endowment
for the Humanities as
the 1994 Jefferson
Lecturer
 Chicago State
University established
the Gwendolyn
Brooks Center on its
campus in 1990

7.  Uses narrative poetry to depict the struggle of a Black
American family trying to own their own home, which ends
up to be in a white neighborhood.
 After the Reeds move into this unwelcoming neighborhood,
they are finally a proud and happy family, but they still didn’t
earn the satisfaction of their Caucasian neighbors.
 As Brooks writes “A neighbor would look, with a yawning eye
that squeezed into a slit. But the Rudolph Reeds and the
children three were too joyous to notice it” (The Ballad of
Rudolph Reed), you can see these feelings of the segregated
neighbors come across, but the Reeds, being so happy that
they have their own home, didn’t even notice.

8.  As the story goes on, the neighbor’s hatred is shown by them
throwing rocks “as big as two fists” on the first night and “a
rock as big as three” on the second night at the Reed’s
home.
 The story ends tragically when the husband/father attacks his
neighbors and is murdered after they attacked his house,
injuring his young daughter.
 As Gwendolyn Brooks puts it, “He ran like a mad thing into the
night. And the words in his mouth were stinking. By the time
he had hurt his first white man he was no longer thinking. By
the time he had hurt his fourth white man Rudolph Reed was
dead. His neighbors gathered and kicked his corpse.
“Nigger-“ his neighbors said.” (The Ballad of Rudolph Reed).

9.  Uses narrative poetry to tell the story of a little black boy who
is shunned by his family and society by the way he looks.
 In her words he is the “Ugliest little boy that everyone ever
saw. That is what everyone said.” (The Life of Lincoln West).
 As he gets older, he realizes that he is unfortunately treated
different.
 This poem describes how discrimination can be more than
just the color of someone’s skin, but other things as well.

10.  One day his mother and he went to the downtown movies,
and while in the movies a white man sitting beside him
whispered loudly to his companion, pointing at Lincoln saying
“THERE! That’s the kind I’ve been wanting to show you! One
of the best examples of the specie. Not like those diluted
Negroes you see so much of on the streets these days, but
the real thing. Black, ugly, and odd. You can see the
savagery. The blunt blankness. That is the real thing” (The Life
of Lincoln West).

11.  Brooks describes African American’s
blackness using metaphors and similes.
 She uses a selective word choice to
describe “Black”
 In this poem, she’s saying that “black”
isn’t just a word, it actually has life and
meaning to it.

12.  The themes of a lot of her poems deal
with discrimination or depict the lives of
urban Black America, with some of these
experiences coming from Brooks
growing up on the South Side of
Chicago
 Brooks was highly respected and
honored by her peers, critics, and
readers which made her writings have a
positive impact on society.