Gwendolyn Brooks Biography

Gwendolyn Brooks was a Chicago poet, the poet laureate of Illinois and the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

Brooks’s first collection of poems, A Street in Bronzeville, was published in 1945 to widespread critical acclaim.

Her 1949 collection, Annie Allen, won the 1950 Pulitzer for poetry; she was the first black poet, male or female, to win the prize.

During her long and celebrated career she taught at a number of colleges. Brooks also raised a family and published poems, a novel (1953’s Maud Martha), and three books of memoirs.

In 1968 she succeeded Carl Sandburg as the poet laureate of Illinois, a post she held until her death.

Her poetry collections include Selected Poems (1963), Riot (1969), The Near Johannesburg Boy and Other Poems (1986) and Blacks (1987).