The Bronzeville poems were her first published collection. Critics praised her poetic skill and her powerful descriptions about the black experience during the time. It was 'A Street in Bronzeville' that gained the attention of literary experts in nineteen forty-five. In her poems, the South Side is called Bronzeville. The South Side of Chicago is where many black people live. In her early poetry, Gwendolyn Brooks wrote about the South Side of Chicago. She said she found most of her material looking out of the window of her second-floor apartment house in Chicago, Illinois. Gwendolyn Brooks once said that she wrote about what she saw and heard in the street. She combined traditional European poetry styles with the African American experience. She was an expert at the language of poetry. She also wrote poems about the struggles of black women.īut her skill was more than her ability to write about struggling black people. Her poems described conditions among the poor, racial inequality and drug use in the black community. Gwendolyn Brooks wrote many poems about being black during the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties. She was known around the world for using poetry to increase understanding about black culture in America. She had more than twenty books published.

Gwendolyn Brooks wrote hundreds of poems during her lifetime. She was the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize for Literature. Today we tell about the life of award-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks. And I'm Sarah Long with the VOA Special English program PEOPLE IN AMERICA. Gwendolyn Brooks, 1917-2000: The Poet Was the First African American to Win a Pulitzer Prize for Literatureĭownload MP3 (Right-click or option-click the link.)

Brooks is known for writing about