Brooks, Gwendolyn 1917–

Pulitzer Prize-winning Black American poet. (See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 1-4, rev. ed.)

Gwendolyn Brooks shares with Langston Hughes the achievement of being most responsive to turbulent changes in the Black Community's vision of itself and to the changing forms of its vibrations during decades of rapid change. The depth of her responsiveness and her range of poetic resources make her one of the most distinguished poets to appear in America during the 20th Century….

Miss Brooks's current way with the expression of Black tensions must be seen as a natural organic progression and growth. Although the poet gained an inspiration during the Sixties which provided further extension of herself and her vision, and approach to community, the experience was not that sudden hot conversion on the road to Damascus so absolutely required by the inner weather of St. Paul. Blacks who see in her writing a sudden...

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