Selected Poems

Gwendolyn Brooks, daughter of David and Keziah Brooks, was born in 1917 in Topeka, Kansas, and lived in Chicago, Illinois. Before she died in 2000, she wrote a novel, an autobiography, writing manuals, children's verse, and several books of poetry, including A Street in Bronzeville, Annie Allen, The Bean Eaters, Maud Martha, and In the Mecca. She was the wife of author Henry Blakely and mother of director Nora Blakely.