Gwendolyn Brooks
Gwendolyn Brooks
Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brookswas an American poet and teacher. She was the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer when she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1950, for her second collection, Annie Allen...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth7 June 1917
CityTopeka, KS
CountryUnited States of America
thinking years people
She was afraid to suggest to him that to most people, nothing "happens." That most people merely live from day to day until they die. That, after he had been dead a year, doubtless fewer than five people would think of him oftener than once a year. That there might even come a year when no one on earth would think of him at all.
people needs want
People are so in need, in need of help. People want so much that they do not know.
people decision insanity
People like definite decisions, / Tidy answers, all the little ravelings / Snipped off, the lint removed, they / Hop happily among their roughs / Calling what they can't clutch insanity / Or saintliness.
writing people looks
I've always thought of myself as a reporter. When people ask why I don't stop writing, I say, `Look at what's happening in this world. Every day there's something exciting or disturbing to write about.’ With all that's going on, how could I stop?
cat people reason
One reason that cats are happier than people is that they have no newspapers.
people use minorities
When you use the term minority or minorities in reference to people, you're telling them that they're less than somebody else.
happening
Look at what's happening in this world. Every day there's something exciting or disturbing to write about. With all that's going on, how could I stop?
color two white
When white and black meet today, sometimes there is a ready understanding that there has been an encounter between two human beings. But often there is only, or chiefly, an awareness that Two Colors are in the room.
men giving waiting
No man can give me any word but Wait ...
sweet flower independent
The forties and fifties were years of high poet-incense; the language-flowers were thickly sweet. Those flowers whined and begged white folks to pick them, to find them lovable. Then the '60s: Independent fire!
mean may speech
I am a writer perhaps because I am not a talker. It has always been hard for me to say exactly what I mean in speech But if I have written a clumsiness, I may erase it.
weed track magic
There are no magics or elves / Or timely godmothers to guide us. We are lost, must / Wizard a track through our own screaming weed.
grief fuel fool
beware the easy griefs / that fool and fuel nothing.
grief mind all-time
I swear to keep the dead upon my mind, / Disdain for all time to be overglad.