A look back at the cultural and political force of Pulitzer
Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks, in celebration of her hundredth
birthday
Artist-Rebel-Pioneer
Pulitzer-Prize winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks is one of the great
American literary icons of the twentieth century, a protégé of Langston
Hughes and mentor to a generation of poets, including Sonia Sanchez,
Nikki Giovanni, and Elizabeth Alexander.
Her poetry took inspiration from the complex portraits of black American
life she observed growing up on Chicago's Southside--a world of
kitchenette apartments and vibrant streets. From the desk in her
bedroom, as a child she filled countless notebooks with poetry,
encouraged by the likes of Hughes and affirmed by Richard Wright, who
called her work "raw and real."
Over the next sixty years, Brooks's poetry served as witness to the
stark realities of urban life: the evils of lynching, the murders of
Emmett Till and Malcolm X, the revolutionary effects of the civil rights
movement, and the burgeoning power of the Black Arts Movement. Critical
acclaim and the distinction in 1950 as the first black person ever
awarded a Pulitzer Prize helped solidify Brooks as a unique and powerful
voice.
Now, in A Surprised Queenhood in the New Black Sun, fellow Chicagoan
and award-winning writer Angela Jackson delves deep into the rich fabric
of Brooks's work and world. Granted unprecedented access to Brooks's
family, personal papers, and writing community, Jackson traces the
literary arc of this artist's long career and gives context for the
world in which Brooks wrote and published her work. It is a powerfully
intimate look at a once-in-a-lifetime talent up close, using forty-three
of Brooks's most soul-stirring poems as a guide.
From trying to fit in at school ("Forgive and Forget"), to loving her
physical self ("To Those of My Sisters Who Kept Their Naturals"), to
marriage and motherhood ("Maud Martha"), to young men on her block ("We
Real Cool"), to breaking history ("Medgar Evers"), to newfound
acceptance from her community and her elevation to a "surprising
queenhood" ("The Wall"), Brooks lived life through her work.
Jackson deftly unpacks it all for both longtime admirers of Brooks and
newcomers curious about her interior life. A Surprised Queenhood in the
New Black Sun is a commemoration of a writer who negotiated black
womanhood and incomparable brilliance with a changing, restless
world--an artistic maverick way ahead of her time.
