The Poetry Of Gwendolyn Brooks's Poetry

There, she started to write at the age of seven and published her first poem at 13. After she completed school, Gwendolyn Brooks found herself working for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and continued to write about the struggles of African Americans in her community. During Gwendolyn Brooks’s career she expanded the topic of her writings. Between 1940-1960’s, her writings were about the oppression of blacks and women of all colors in her community, and she poetically criticized the shocking prejudice that African Americans had for one another. However, during 1960’s she developed a new attitude, due to her growing political awareness. She began to expand her poetry from the day-to-day life of the African Americans in her community, to writing about the wider world and the racial struggles of African American people everywhere. She then brought back all of her accomplishments to her community by reading her poems to children at various venues. By the end of her life, she had inspired thousands of young

     Gwendolyn Brooks is the female poet who has been most responsive to changes in the black community, particularly in the community’s vision of itself. The first African American to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize; she was considered one of America’s most distinguished poets well before the age of fifty. Known for her technical artistry, she has succeeded in forms as disparate as Italian terza rima and the blues. She has been praised for her wisdom and insight into the African Experience in America. Her works reflect both the paradises and the hells of the black people of the world. Her writing is objective, but her characters speak for themselves. Although the

Gwendolyn Brooks was an African American poet . Her first poem was ,“ Eventide”, :

What themes and ideas does Gwen Harwood explore in her poetry and how does she communicate her ideas to the reader

“We Real Cool," by Gwendolyn Brooks is a fervent short poem that tells a story of teenage rebellion. This poem is a formal verse ballad which uses simple sentences that create a steady meter giving the poem a catchy jazz like quality. Although the poem is short, it packs a powerful message about youth. Gwendolyn Brooks centered her works predominately around the African American consciousness. During the 1960’s when the poem was written, many teens especially young African-American men felt misunderstood and like the world was set up for them to fail. On the surface, it appears this poem is a mere description of young adults that are misjudged. The deeper message of this poem addresses the dangers of peer pressure, and its detrimental effects to self-identity because of the disconnect between society and youth of that time.

The famous African American poet, Gwendolyn Brooks, grew up on the south-side of Chicago. She paved the way for many female African American woman today. In the The African American Experience textbook there is two amazing poems written by her. One is titled “The Sonnet-Ballad” and the other is titled “We Real Cool”. On the surface these two poems seem to have simple means, but if you dig under the surface there is more than meets the eye. Each poem has the three component that make a poem according to Stephen Henderson. Each poem has a theme, structure, and saturation. Each component is presented in a different way. Its presented in a way that makes the poem more affective in its message, and that is the reason why these poems are so

Love is not always an easy adventure to take part in. As a result, thousands of poems and sonnets have been written about love bonds that are either praised and happily blessed or love bonds that undergo struggle and pain to cling on to their forbidden love. Gwendolyn Brooks sonnet "A Lovely Love," explores the emotions and thoughts between two lovers who are striving for their natural human right to love while delicately revealing society 's crime in vilifying a couples right to love. Gwendolyn Brooks uses several examples of imagery and metaphors to convey a dark and hopeless mood that emphasizes the hardships that the two lovers must endure to prevail their love that society has condemned.

Gwen Harwood, a contemporary female poet, born in Brisbane Australia in the 1920 's, wrote her poetry during a time where Australian society held dominant gender ideologies that focused on domesticating women. A widely held belief of a passive, nurturing mother figure who looked after her children and complied with her duties as a 'house-wife ', whilst men were viewed as the sole source of income and had a minimal nurturing role with children, was shared, along with ideas of male superiority, and of masculine qualities being superior to feminine qualities, both of which were only expected to be embodied by males and females respectively. The construction of people, places and institutions through poetic conventions in Harwood 's poetry allows the audience to identify these cultural beliefs in conventional gender roles and expectations within 1950 's Australian society in particular. These constructions critique the attitudes and values of the time, especially where women are concerned, and thus position the audience to reject the patriarchal assumptions of the time. Her poems Suburban Sonnet and Prize Giving are can be perceived as radical interpretations and criticisms of the views of the time they were written in, and attest to Harwood 's own beliefs of female independence and placing value on feminine and masculine roles and qualities equally. Harwood grew up with the main female figures in her life being her mother and grandmother, who were both very independent; her

Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks are regarded as highly influential poets in African American literature, which continues to inspire writers to this day. Langston Hughes is a well-known pioneer of the Harlem Renaissance, a movement in which African Americans in Harlem during post World War I and the early 1930’s began a cultural and artistic revolution. During this time, African American musicians, artists, writers, and poets revolutionized their position in and through many artistic fields of expression. This cultural and artistic revolution redefined how America viewed the African American population, which garnered respect and criticism from Americans nationwide. Gwendolyn Brooks, an African American poet also in the 19th century, was introduced to Langston Hughes at a young age peeking her interest in the Harlem Renaissance that eventually became a foundation and influence in her writing. Gwendolyn Brooks and Langston Hughes share similarities in the writing as she was highly inspired by Langston Hughes, but also share many differences that are responsible for making their pieces of writing unique to other authors and each other.

Ai, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Kwame Dawes are all contemporary African American poets. Their works often focused on different aspects of the post civil rights movement in the African American community. Ai was known for writing poetry on hard subjects. She was laso known for writing poems that were graphic. Being multiracial, ( 1/2 Japanese, 1/8 Choctaw, 1/4 Black, and 1/16 Irish), many of her poems were based on the complexity of idenity. On the other hand, Kwame Dawes is a Nigerian born man of Jamaican descent. Gwendolyn Brooks was an African American women whose adult years were spent during the civil rights movement.

Poetry is the creative means in which emotion is expressed through the literary art of rhythm, rhyme and repetition. Over time, the distinctive style of poetry has been altered to create great diversity branching from the traditional poetic style of writing. Missouri born author, Naomi Shihab Nye, provides a great example of a unique style of writing. Nye is a poet, songwriter and novelist whose style incorporates everyday objects in her writing to create a spontaneous, yet thoughtful connection between these everyday items and the reader. In the most basic form, Nyes’ poem is about fame. She implies that it is essentially “these little things that we overlook – all these everyday, seemingly unimportant things – are really what deserve

Gwendolyn Brooks is the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize. She has also received a lot of awards and fellowships throughout her life. Born in 1917, she started her writing career in poetry at an early age, publishing her first poem in 1930. 1967 was a turning point in her career as it was in this year that she attended the Fisk University Second Black Writers' Conference. In this conference, she has decided to involve herself in the Black Arts Movement. While awareness of social issues and elements of protest is found generally in all her works, some of her critics found in her work an angrier tone after joining the movement.

Gwendolyn brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas. Her family moved to Chicago during the great migration when Brooks was six weeks old. Her first poem was published when she was 13 and at the age of 17, she already had a series of poems published in the poetry column “Lights and shadows” in the Chicago defender newspaper. . After working for The NAACP, she began to write poems that focus on urban poor blacks. Those poems were later published as a collection in 1945. The collection was titled A Street in Bronzeville. A street in bronzeville received critical acclaim but it was her next work, Annie Allen, that was got her the Pulitzer Prize. She lived in Chicago until her death on December 3, 2000 at age of 83.

Langston Hughes is a famous poet known mostly for his contribution to the Harlem Renaissance. He wrote many inspirational poems that are still read and used for educational purposes. Many of his poems were inspired by his life and his story. One of his many poems entitled “Theme for English B” talks about how his teacher instructed him to write a page about himself and it will be true. In a “Theme for English B”, Hughes uses tone, and characterization to display a relationship between race and writing.

Gwendolyn Brooks was a black poet from Kansas who wrote in the early twentieth century. She was the first black woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize. Her writings deal mostly with the black experience growing up in inner Chicago. This is the case with one of her more famous works, Maud Martha. Maud Martha is a story that illustrates the many issues that a young black girl faces while growing up in a ‘white, male driven’ society. One aspect of Martha that is strongly emphasized on the book is her low self-image and lack of self-esteem. Martha feels that she is inferior for several reasons, but it is mainly the social pressures that she faces and her own blackness that contribute to these feelings of inferiority. It is