Gwendolyn Brooks

A first novel by this world class poet, Maud Martha captures the essence of Black life. Gwendolyn Brooks portrays one woman's quest and love for life despite its difficulties. Whether she confronts teenaged love and marriage or the challenges of womanhood and adulthood survival, we come face to face with Maud Martha--recognizing that her beauty and strength reside deep in every one of us.--page 4 of cover.

Seasons: A Gwendolyn Brooks Experience captures her life and work in a new book filled with thematic collections of her poetry and prose; photos; memories from family, friends, peers and mentees and gripping illustrations from the award-winning artist, Jan Spivey Gilchrist. Now more than ever the words of Gwendolyn Brooks demonstrate their continued relevance in the 21st century. The national centennial celebration is one part of a resurgence of appreciation...

"The last words of each line in a Golden Shovel poem are, in order, words from a line or lines taken from a Brooks poem. The poems are, in a way, secretly encoded to enable both a horizontal reading of the new poem and vertical reading down the right-hand margin of Brooks's original. An array of writers, including Pulitzer Prize winners, T. S. Eliot Prize winners, National Book Award winners, and National Poet Laureates, have written poems for this...

African American poets Lucille Clifton and Gwendolyn Brooks read selections drawn from their own works. Some poems include introductory remarks.