Gwendolyn Brooks

Essay by ylim389High School, 12th gradeA-, November 2008

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A Voyage to Inspire: Gwendolyn Brooks' Journey

In the past century, writers have taken serious subjects such as prejudice and injustice, or grave obstacles they have overcome and portray them through their literary work. Gwendolyn Brooks is one of these writers; her poetry shines through rain clouds of doubt and discrimination and gives hope to anyone who comes across a poem of hers. Brooks congeals herself as a modern black poet and exposes her true feelings about motherhood, racism, and social beliefs though her various works; she strives to present these themes to a worldly audience, seeking acceptance and bestowing knowledge.

People will not argue that Gwendolyn Brooks hasn't been through some of the toughest and most controversial times in our history. She lived through the depression, through the World Wars, through the Civil Rights Movement, and other important stitches in the 20th century. She was born in Topeka, Kansas in 1917, but shortly after moved to Illinois, where she grew up and experienced the integration and segregation systems of high school.

She began to write poetry at a young age and was immediately recognized for her talent, as well as the deep meaning that came along with her words. Her life in the city is reflected in many of her poems as well as some of the struggles she, or someone close to her, has had to endure.

One of Brooks' more famous and more influential pieces of work is "A Street in Bronzeville," which is a collection of many poems. It focuses on her experience as a black woman living in the 60's and the poverty and sadness that people she was close to had to go through. Brooks portrays unfair treatment of African-Americans in many of these works, like in "The Ballad of Rudolph Reed." This...