Every day brings a new story. And each day contributes to story telling -- in prose and in poetry, in art and in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books.
Today is the story of June 7th
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It is the 158th day of the year, leaving 207 days remaining in 2022.
She told her stories in verse. These were stories of Black people. Of urban people. Of Black people living and working and being and surviving in the city. Of fighting hatred, discrimination, and bigotry.
Fellow author Richard Wright said Brooks' writing about the lives of the destitute, the wounded and the hated was authentic, realistic, and without self-pity.
She wrote short verse such as The Bean Eater, about a poor, elderly couple eating their supper. She wrote long, epic poems such as The Anniad, which is part of her award-winning book, Annie Allen, a series of interconnected poems about a Black girl's growing to adulthood.
In The Life of Lincoln West, Brooks wrote about the "ugliest little boy that anyone ever saw." The boy knows people reject him, but he tries to accept them anyway.
His kindergarten teacher -- whose
concern for him was composed of one
part sympathy and two parts repulsion.
The others ran up with their little drawings.
He ran up with his.
She
tried to be as pleasant with him as
with others, but it was difficult.
For she was all pretty!
Brooks published her first poem, Eventide, in the children's magazine American Childhood when she was 13. At 16, she was a regular contributor to the poetry page of The Chicago Defender, one of the major newspapers covering the Black community.
When she won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1950 for Annie Allen, she was the first African-American poet to received the award. She was named the poet laureate of Illinois in 1968, and the U.S. poet laureate in 1985. She received the Robert Frost Medal and the National Medal of Arts.
She died in Chicago in 2000.
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