Annie Perkins (Essay Date 2001)

SOURCE: Perkins, Annie. "The Poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks (1970s-1980s)." In Women Making Art: Women in the Visual, Literary, and Performing Arts since 1960, edited by Deborah Johnson and Wendy Oliver, pp. 43-63. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2001.

In the following essay, Perkins offers an in-depth analysis of Brooks's life and works.

Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917) was born in Topeka, Kansas, and was reared in Chicago, her lifelong home. With the support and nurture of her parents, Brooks began writing poetry at age seven. She was first published at age thirteen, and by the time of her graduation from Englewood High School, had published seventy-five poems in the Chicago Defender.

In 1936, Brooks graduated from Wilson Junior College. In 1939, she married and settled happily into domesticity with her husband, Henry Lowington Blakely II, and later Henry III, their baby son. During this period, Brooks continued...