According to her autobiography, Report from Part One (1972), Gwendolyn Brooks was a shy and sensitive schoolgirl who, while yearning for the glamour and popularity of some girls around her, spent her time in reading, in participating in a close family life, and in writing verse: "My mother says I began rhyming at seven .... Of course I would be a poet! Was a poet! Didn't I write a poem every day? Sometimes two poems""

During the 1930s, Brooks served as publicity director for the NAACP Youth Council in Chicago. Since that time she has gone through school, marriage, the births of two children, divorce, and increasing renown to become a major voice in contemporary American poetry. She has had a varied and successful teaching career at Northeastern Illinois University, University of Wisconsin at Madison, Columbia College in Chicago, Elmhurst College in Elmhurst, Illinois, and City College, City University of...