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:

    “We say ourselves fortunate to be driving by today.
    That we may look at them, in their gardens where
    The summer ripeness rots. But not raggedly.
    Even the leaves fall down in lovelier patterns here.”
    —Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)

    “Nobody is saying that these people do not ultimately cease to be. And
    Sometimes their passings are even more painful than ours.
    It is just that so often they live till their hair is white.
    They make excellent corpses, among the expensive flowers. . . .”
    —Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)

    “And shall I prime my children, pray, to pray?”
    —Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)

    “Think of sweet and chocolate,
    Left to folly or to fate,
    Whom the higher gods forgot,
    Whom the lower gods berate;
    Physical and underfed
    Fancying on the featherbed ...”
    —Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)

    “‘I shall create! If not a note, a hole.
    If not an overture, a desecration.’”
    —Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)