Gwendolyn Brooks - A Great Black Poet
On June 7, 1917 in Topeka, Kansas, an amazing person was born. Gwendolyn Brooks was a black female poet who has inspired and touched many people who have read her poetry. Brooks was the first black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize Brooks began writing at age eleven and was first published at age fifteen. Throughout Gwendolyn Brooks’ works, she writes about racism, the lives of blacks, and her love for all people no matter what race or class they are. In many of Brooks’ works, she identifies the cause of interracial problems within the black community. The cause is white racism and its affects on society. One example of racism in Brooks’ works is in “The Ballad of Chocolate Mabbie.” This poem is about a black female heroine who is tortured by the white kids because of the color of her dark skin and her black lover named Willie Boone. Throughout “The Ballad of Pearl May Lee”, Brooks talks about sweet revenge and betrayal for the love of a black man. Although most of these poems are dealing with unpleasant racism against blacks, she also writes well of blacks. For example, in “Boys, Black”, she encourages black kids to develop good health and a good overall appearance. Brooks, unlike some writers is not a racial writer. . . .
Brooks wanted her poetry to reach out to people who did not usually read her type of writing. She also says that because of this type of thing happening everyday, it is known as custom. “In the Mecca” reflects Brooks’ earlier poetry having to do with war poems. Martin, who is embarrassed by her son Booker T. ” During Christmas time, Maude takes her child Paulette to go and see Santa Clause. He impregnates a girl before she was married and ruined her life; the only way to fix this problem is to marry the girl. Brooks not only writes about her love for all people, but she writes of love between people in her poems. A mother must face the death of her one-year-old son, who died because his brother burned him for fun in “The Murder”. She also writes about living in the slums of the city as a black person. Maude now just hopes Paulette can live in the fantasy world thinking everything is ok as long as she can. Sometimes Brooks makes her poems and stories pertain to her own life; . She does not curse white people or black people, she just tells it how it is. In “The Mother”, a woman has had many abortions, and she has to go through the rest of her life with the anguish of making that decision.
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