The first black writer to win the Pulitzer Prize, Gwendolyn Brooks holds, as the critic George E. Kent noted in Dictionary of Literary Biography, "a unique position in American letters. Not only has she combined a strong commitment to racial identity and equality with a mastery of poetic techniques, but she has also managed to bridge the gap between the academic poets of her generation in the 1940s and the young black militant writers of the 1960s." Brooks has written poetry for over half a century, beginning in the late 1940s with such popular works as A Bronzeville Street and Annie Allen, written in folksy ballad form and more formalistic patterns to tell the stories of individuals fighting the twin demons of poverty and racism. As Martha Liebrum noted in the Houston Post, Brooks "wrote about being black before black was beautiful."

In the 1960s Brooks embraced more...