Brooks, Gwendolyn 1917–

Brooks is an American poet, novelist, and writer of juvenile fiction. She is capable of handling both the technical demands of the sonnet form and of creating verse whose simple and direct diction recalls the work of Langston Hughes and Robert Frost. Critics have noted a change in the subject of Brooks's poetry, inspired by the racial conflicts of the late 1960s. Her work until this time had generally focused on universal concepts, the poetic consciousness seeking and delineating the human condition and avoiding any overt statement about the plight of blacks in America. In the late sixties, however, Brooks began to explore the condition of black Americans and to recognize their rage and despair as her own. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 1950. (See also CLC, Vols. 1, 2, 4, 5, Contemporary Authors, Vols. 1-4, rev. ed., and Something about the Author, Vol. 6.)