Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks (June 7, 1917 – December 3, 2000) was an African-American poet. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1950 and was appointed Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968 and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1985.

Read more about Gwendolyn Brooks:  Biography, Career, Excerpt, Honors and Legacy, Bibliography

Famous quotes by gwendolyn brooks:

    Oh Squalor! This sick four-story hulk, this fibre
    With fissures everywhere!
    Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)

    She kisses her killed boy.
    And she is sorry.
    Chaos in windy grays
    through a red prairie.
    Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)

    Maud went to college.
    Sadie stayed at home.
    Sadie scraped life
    With a fine-tooth comb.
    Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)

    Even now she does the snake-hips with a hiss,
    Slops the bad wine across her shantung, talks
    Of pregnancy, guitars and bridgework, walks
    In parks or alleys, comes haply on the verge
    Of happiness, haply hysterics. Is.
    Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)

    I am not like that. I pay rent, am addled
    By illegible landlords, run, if robbers call.
    Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)