Gwendolyn Brooks

An item at American Writers Museum

Gwendolyn Brooks was one of the most revered poets of the 20th century. She was the first African-American to win the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Poetry with the collection Annie Allen (1949). Her many other honors included appointments as Poet Laureate of Illinois and U.S. Poet Laureate.

Brooks relished experimentation, continually evolving as an artist. She used traditional forms like ballads and sonnets but also wrote with blues rhythms. In the 1960s, her involvement with the Black Arts Movement inspired what author Toni Cade Bambara described as an urgent "power of statement and a new stripped lean, compressed style."

AMERICAN VOICES

An exhibit at American Writers Museum

American writing is distinctive, diverse, and comes in many forms from across the nation. The 100 authors featured here represent the evolution of American writing. Learn more about each writer on the timeline by turning the panels below their portraits. Explore centuries of writing by pulling, turning, and touching the interactive elements on the counter.

This is not meant to be a list of the greatest or most influential writers. Instead, we present authors and works as part of the American story as it grows and changes. Taken together, this rich literary heritage reflects America in all of its complexity: its energy, hope, conflict, disillusionment, and creativity.

American Writers Museum