If you wanted a poem, you had only to look out of a window. There was material always, walking or running, fighting or screaming or singing.
—Gwendolyn Brooks

Brooks’s first book of poetry, A Street in Bronzeville, was influenced by the people that she connected with and observed on the streets of her neighborhood in Chicago. In these poems, Brooks portrays scenes of urban Black daily life, a topic that was otherwise ignored in popular writing at the time. Her subjects are the preacher, the working woman, the married couple, the schoolgirl. Brooks’s empathetic treatment of the day-to-day lives of African American people, from dealing with systemic racism and poverty to celebratory moments of joy and love, paints intimate and relatable portraits of her community.

“We’re the Only Colored People Here” was printed in the inaugural volume of Black Sun Press’s Portfolio: An Intercontinental Quarterly. Brooks’s short story, excerpted from the manuscript that would become the novel Maud Martha (1953), is told from the perspective of a couple attempting to enjoy a night at the theater despite the uncomfortable reality alluded to in the title. Created by Caresse Crosby, an American expatriate and publisher in Paris, as an “exchange of thought between America and Europe,” Portfolio showcased avant-garde writers and artists. Notably, Brooks was the only Black writer whose work was featured in the volume, alongside that of Henry Miller, Kay Boyle, Karl Shapiro, and others.

Brooks made history in 1950 by becoming the first African American recipient of a Pulitzer Prize. Annie Allen, the winning book of poetry, tells a story in three parts of a young African American woman coming into adulthood during World War I. With formal and technical precision, Annie Allen explores the title character’s struggles with love, loss, and growing up, casting them in an epic light. The frontispiece, a soft rendering of the poet’s profile by her friend Ernest Alexander, may have been the first likeness of Brooks that readers had seen. The novel Maud Martha follows themes similar to those in Annie Allen: though the former is Brooks’s sole work of fiction, both books are partly autobiographical.

In 1967 Brooks’s participation at the Black Writers’ Conference at Fisk University made an indelible impact on her. Among the other speakers was Amiri Baraka, a vocal member of the Black Arts movement whose poetry raged against oppression. He joined like-minded poets in writing exclusively and directly to a Black audience, creating a sense of fellowship, instilling the power of self-determination, and rejecting racist institutions. Conversation at Fisk revealed to Brooks the possibilities of liberation in Black solidarity, and she would return home and do what she did best: write. In the Mecca centers on the Mecca Flats apartment complex in Chicago but also expands beyond it, connecting the disillusioned inhabitants of the dilapidated building to people suffering the conditions of racism everywhere.

It is the task or job or responsibility or pleasure or pride of any writer to respond to his climate.
—Gwendolyn Brooks

The 1960s assassinations of two great African American leaders, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, mobilized the Black Power movement, an international campaign against anti-Black racism. Brooks, like many Black writers, felt the need to address these tragedies and their repercussions. The Black-owned Broadside Press responded to that need, publishing work that emphasized issues of identity, cultural history, racial justice, and community uplift. Broadside’s first book of poems, For Malcolm, provided a space for Black authors to speak about the life, work, and death of the prominent leader.

Reflecting her newly urgent interest in racial consciousness, Brooks changed publishers in 1970, switching from the major press Harper & Row to the small, new Broadside Press. “Everyone who’s black,” she said, “ought to have a black publisher.” In Riot, her first book of poetry released by Broadside, Brooks documents reactions of the global Black community to the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Working with Broadside gave Brooks more freedom to speak directly to Black audiences. In return for this freedom, she donated all royalties from Riot back to the press. With Brooks’s backing, Broadside became a central asset to the Black Arts movement. Known today as Broadside Lotus Press, it is one of the oldest Black-owned US publishers still in operation.

A riot is the language of the unheard.
—Martin Luther King Jr., epigraph of Riot

A poem in three parts, Riot, like 1968’s In the Mecca, is more experimental and directly political than Brooks’s early work. Allah Shango, the frontispiece by AfriCOBRA cofounder Jeff Donaldson, shows two young men behind a sheet of glass. One holds a long African statuette and seems poised to smash it through the invisible barrier at any moment. The text of Riot announces that young Black people are prepared literally to fight back against oppression. Its design was meant to unsettle any White audiences and proclaim Black cultural authority.

The creators of the Black Arts movement wanted to reach the widest possible Black audience. To do so, writers had to “bring poetry to the people,” wherever they were. It was with this in mind that Broadside Press launched its Broadside Series, printing single poems on sheets of paper with eye-catching designs. Often sold for a few cents, these sheets were meant to be passed around, hung up, and pasted on city walls. The ethos of this format, which made poetry accessible at minimal cost, also inspired the press’s name. When publisher Dudley Randall started the series, he asked Brooks if she would contribute a poem. Brooks replied, “You can use any poem I have,” resulting in this striking print of her 1960 work “We Real Cool,” designed by Cledie Taylor.

Created by the Black poet Dudley Randall in 1965 without any blueprint, savings, or investors, Broadside Press survived and grew through the support of Black artists and its international Black readership. In the press’s early years, Randall and his associates worked out of a single room in his home. The first publications were high quality but produced in relatively small numbers, which allowed them to be printed quickly and at a low cost. Like the press’s broadside poems, the covers of its books featured bold designs by Black artists. Randall also used Broadside to print his own work, which mainstream publishers had refused due to its subject matter, including discussions of state violence and the need for new representations of Black life.

When Brooks developed her first memoir project, Report from Part One, she insisted that it be printed by Broadside Press. The result was an experimental book containing interviews, letters from the poet’s parents and children, and approximately eighty photographs—personal family pictures as well as snapshots of collaborators, colleagues, neighbors, and other community members, many taken by photographer Roy Lewis. Brooks dedicated the book to these friends and fellow Black artists who fed her creativity and work. The inclusion of these names and photos in Brooks’s memoir shows how integral community was in her life, introducing a collective impulse into the tradition of autobiographical writing.

Brooks proclaimed that a younger generation of artists—including Knight, Sanchez, Madhubuti, and Giovanni—were “turning Black poetry around” by writing with new energy about Black life and experience. She lauded their self-awareness, their fresh perspectives on long-standing issues, and the urgency and directness with which they wrote and performed. Brooks both supported and learned from these young artists: she joined them for readings in parks, housing projects, prisons, and taverns, thus connecting with previously unreached audiences. Many of the volumes shown here are from Brooks’s own library and include personal inscriptions to the poet by her mentees.

As Brooks became further engaged with the ideas of heritage and unity aligned with the Black Arts movement, it became increasingly important for her to travel to what she called “Mother Africa”—a trip she would take several times throughout her later life. On her first African journey in 1971, she visited Nairobi, where she was filled with both “warm joy and an inexpressible sadness” for the history that separated her from the land. In this postcard written to her friends and former editors Roslyn and Bill Targ, Brooks describes Kenya as “beautiful beyond belief.” Brooks found the experience so valuable that, after becoming a writing teacher, she periodically subsidized her students’ trips not only to Kenya but also Ghana and South Africa.

Brooks kept a habit of writing poetry to and about her friends and fellow poets. The collection Family Pictures speaks to the importance of these relationships, containing poems about people Brooks considered “kin.” The central theme of the book is solidarity and unity in the face of global anti-Blackness, and the section “Young Heroes” contains dedication poems that show Brooks’s admiration and support of a new generation of Black writers in the United States and abroad. “Keorapetse Kgositsile,” for example, is titled after the South African Tswana poet, journalist, and political activist.

Writer and educator Hoyt Fuller, in his introduction to the anthology To Gwen with Love, calls the volume a “gesture of affection and respect.” Its production was inspired by a 1969 tribute to Brooks that took place at the Affro-Arts Theater in Chicago, directed by actress Val Gray Ward, a friend of the poet’s. During the tribute, Black artists from around the country gathered to honor Brooks with performances, speeches, poetry, and music. This volume is a fitting testament to her influence, containing poems, fiction, essays, and illustrations from over sixty contributors. The cover design, created by artist Jeff Donaldson in his unique and colorful style, features Brooks surrounded by the titles of her published books.

The Black Arts movement initiated a radical shift from the predominantly White mainstream art world, allowing Black artists to create their own institutions and metrics for what was considered art. The movement introduced a visual language that emphasized Black cultural history and celebrated Afrocentric imagery. Jeff Donaldson, cofounder of the artists’ collective AfriCOBRA and contributor to the mural the Wall of Respect in Chicago, used color and shape to represent Black subjects dynamically. His piece Victory in the Valley of Eshu speaks to the Black Art movement’s experimental nature.

Witnessing the ongoing violence affecting young people in her neighborhood—exemplified by this poem, “A Boy Died in My Alley”—Brooks started working with local youth. In 1970, alongside playwright Oscar Brown Jr. and poet-organizer Walter Bradford, her lifelong friend, Brooks began teaching creative writing to members of the Blackstone Rangers, a local gang composed mostly of teenagers and young adults. The Rangers had no interest in reading the classics or learning iambic pentameter, and they challenged Brooks to become more imaginative in her lessons. Brooks rose to the task and soon became not only a teacher but also a mentor and friend to the youths. She would go on to write poems in sympathy and solidarity with the young Rangers’ hopes and struggles.

Three members of Brooks’s writing workshop—Johari Amini, Don L. Lee (a.k.a. Haki R. Madhubuti), and Carolyn Rogers—established their own publishing company, Third World Press, in December 1967. The press began in Madhubuti’s basement apartment on the South Side of Chicago with four hundred dollars, a used mimeograph machine, and a commitment to publishing texts by writers involved in the Black Arts movement. It has since grown to become one of the most formidable Black publishing houses in the United States. Brooks would release five books, including her second memoir, Report from Part Two (1996), with Third World Press, working closely with her former mentees.

Brooks published a number of children’s books throughout her career, often using the medium to discuss topics such as acceptance and belonging. The mother of two children, Henry (born 1940) and Nora (born 1951), Brooks was frequently inspired by her experience as a parent to write about the trials and tribulations of childhood. Her books for young readers were extensions of the lessons that she shared with her son and daughter, bringing what she called the “privacy of family pleasure” to the world.

As a teacher, Brooks went above and beyond for her students, making sure they were exposed to many types of literature and purchasing them tickets to local poetry readings. As Brooks wrote in this letter to an eighth-grade teacher, “If you’re influencing children, you must encourage them to read many kinds of books.” Throughout her career, Brooks continued to support younger writers both financially and educationally.

Inspired by her years of teaching and experience working with independent Black publishers, Brooks created her own imprint in 1980 and produced these guides for young poets. Brooks thought it was essential that young people have the opportunity to express themselves. “A teacher cannot create a poet,” she once said, but “a teacher can oblige the writing student to write.” The covers of these books, like the writing exercises in them, are simple and inviting, aiming to introduce a new generation to the joy of poetry.

Blacks, the largest collection of Brooks’s work, was designed by the poet—an advantage of self-publishing that she valued greatly. The deep-blue binding and gilt cover evoke a Bible or dictionary, at once aesthetically pleasing and meant for everyday use and consultation. The dust jacket’s simple design is a trademark of Brooks’s self-published volumes. The David Company, her second imprint, was named in honor of her father, David Anderson Brooks. Gwendolyn credited his habit of singing and reciting poetry throughout the house with inspiring her to write poems in her youth. These tender moments are present in her poetry as an inspiration for all who read.