March 21 is recognized as World Poetry Day, and to celebrate we are highlighting a Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Gwendolyn Brooks!

Gwendolyn was raised on the South Side of Chicago, where she began writing from a very young age with her mother’s encouragement. In her teen years, she began submitting her poems to various publications, and later became a regular contributor to “The Chicago Defender” by the time she had graduated from high school. Her poems often ranged in style from ballads and sonnets to using free verse, and drew upon experiences of living in the inner-city.

After choosing to not pursue a four-year degree because she wanted to be a writer, she attended a two-year program at Wilson Junior College and worked as a typist to support her career. In 1941, she started to attend poetry workshops at the South Side Community Art Center and learned from influential poets such as Inez Cunningham Stark and Langston Hughes.

In 1944, she achieved her goal and had two poems published in the “Poetry” magazine November issue. She then transitioned into publishing books of poetry, in which her first book, “A Street in Bronzeville,” earned critical acclaims for her work and depictions of the Chicago neighborhood.

Her second book, “Annie Allen,” was awarded the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, making her the first African American to receive the award. The book told the story of an African American girl’s passage from childhood to womanhood. She would later go on to write other books including “Children Coming Home,” “To Disembark” and “The Bean Eaters,” with many of her works focusing on the civil rights activism of the 1960s.

Through her literary contributions, she received many awards including a National Medal of the Arts in 1995. She also was named Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968 and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1985. Today, Brooks remains one of the most famous African American poets.