Poet Gwendolyn Brooks Dies
Dec. 4 -- Gwendolyn Brooks, who promoted an understandingof black culture through her candid, compassionate poetry andbecame the first African-American to win a Pulitzer Prize, has diedof cancer. She was 83.
She wrote hundreds of poems, had more than 20 books published,and had been Illinois’ poet laureate since 1968. Her poetry delvedinto poverty, racism and drugs among black people.
“I believe that we should all know each other, we humancarriers of so many pleasurable differences,” she said in a recentinterview. “To not know is to doubt, to shrink from, sidestep ordestroy.”
‘We Real Cool’
Dr. Jifunza Wright, who was Brooks’ attending physician, saidthe poet died Sunday at her home, surrounded by friends and familymembers who had been taking turns reading to her.
Her Pulitzer was awarded in 1950 for her second book of poetry,Annie Allen.
One of her most famous poems is “We Real Cool,” from the 1960collection The Bean Eaters. The short poem sums up hopelessnessin eight lines:
We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon.
Brooks continued to write throughout her life and had completedher most recent volume of poems late this summer, her agent CarolynAguila said.
“Her activity regarding her creative muse was very high,”Aguila said. “She continued to speak and read and do all sorts ofappearances.”
In 1989, Brooks received a lifetime achievement award from theNational Endowment for the Arts. She was named the 1994 JeffersonLecturer by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the highesthonor bestowed by the federal government for work in thehumanities.
Spurred by War, Racism
Brooks was born in Topeka, Kan., in 1917, but grew up inChicago.
She began writing at 11 when she mailed several poems to acommunity newspaper in Chicago to surprise her family. Her earlyworks were mostly autobiographical, detailing the death of friends,her relationship with her family and their reaction to war andracism.
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