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:

    ‘Men there were and men there be
    But never men so many
    Chief enough to marry me,’
    Thought the proud late Annie.
    Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)

    Pygmies expand in cold impossible air,
    Cry fie on giantshine, poor glory which
    Pounds breast-bone punily, screeches, and has
    Reached no Alps: or, knows no Alps to reach.
    Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)

    But who walks with Him? dares to take His arm,
    To slap Him on the shoulder, tweak His ear,
    Buy Him a Coca-Cola or a beer,
    Pooh-pooh His politics, call Him a fool?
    Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)

    Build with lithe love. With love like lion-eyes.
    With love like morningrise.
    With love like black, our black—
    luminously indiscreet;
    complete; continuous.’
    Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)

    Such as boxed
    Their feelings properly, complete to tags
    A box for dark men and a box for Other
    Would often find the contents had been scrambled.
    Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)