“In December 1967, at a workshop called the Kumuba Workshop in a rundown theater in Chicago, I was given an award for just being me, and that’s what poetry is to me-just being me. She would attend poetry slams in Chicago, where aspiring poets would line up to read their works, and she often financed awards to the poet voted the best reader by the audience.īrooks once said of the awards she received, including having a bronze sculpture of her placed in the National Portrait Gallery, that there was only one that meant a great deal to her. She said she found it intoxicating and exciting to see young talent. Brooks was renowned for using her influence as a leading figure in American literature to promote the value of poetry and to inspire young writers. She used her prestige as Illinois’ poet laureate to inspire young writers, establishing the Illinois Poet Laureate Awards in 1969 to encourage elementary and high school students to write. The Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing was founded in 1990 at Chicago State University, where she served as distinguished professor and writer-in-residence. “She was all over the map sharing her gifts.”

“She mentored literally three generations of poets-black, white, Hispanic, Native American,” said longtime friend, poet and literature professor Haki Madhubuti, who founded the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing at Chicago State University. “You are a member of my family.”īut she was quick to point that she wasn’t exclusionary, noting that she had the liveliest interest in other families.īrooks was also known as a tireless teacher and advocate of creative writing and poetry.

“If you have one drop of blackness blood in you-yes, of course it comes out red-you are mine,” she said. Brooks often referred to her works as her family, which also included black people in general.

What did gwendolyn brooks write about