A Life of Gwendolyn Brooks [Hardcover]

George E. Kent (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1990

" This is the first full-scale biography of Gwendolyn Brooks, one of America's major poets. George E. Kent, a longtime friend and literary associate of the poet in Chicago, was given exclusive access to Brooks' early notebooks, which she kept from the age of seven. Kent also interviewed Brooks, her mother, and other family members in Chicago and elsewhere. He scoured records and correspondence with her publishers, editors, and agent. He participated in the poet's literary enterprises and in her wide circle of literary and family friends. The study reveals intimate acquaintance with the Harlem Renaissance, with the Chicago literary scene and its leading figures from the thirties on, with historical developments in black culture and consciousness, and with the significant figures and activities that impressed the poet's life and art. It places Brooks' work in the context of the civil rights movement, the black arts movement, and black nationalism. Gwendolyn Brooks won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1950 for Annie Allen and is today widely recognized as one of the nation's leading poets, yet her work has received less than its due from mainstream critics. Kent's authoritative book has been one step in correcting that neglect.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Completed shortly before the death of University of Chicago professor Kent, this major study of Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago poet Gwendolyn Brooks ends with the death of her mother in 1978. Based on interviews, correspondence and the poet's private notebooks, the biography examines the change in her verse from the formality and traditionalism of her early work to the later inclusion of ordinary speech, loose rhythms and communal reference points that won her a mass audience. Also noted is Brooks's identification and solidarity with the black struggle and the consequences of blacks' "strangerhood" in America.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This long-awaited volume by the late George Kent is the first full-scale biography of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet. Kent carefully chronicles Brooks's aesthetic and political development in relation to familial and literary influences, the Chicago arts community, and the civil rights and black nationalist movements. Brooks is dramatically and critically portrayed as an artist struggling to create a style that reflects the particularities of her own and other black Americans' experiences while conveying a greater universalism in black life and literature. Her achievements as a critic, teacher, speaker, philanthropist, and activist are also emphasized. Enriched by generous quotes from Brooks's early notebooks, as well as anecdotes from the poet, her family, and her friends, this book will be enjoyed by anyone interested in Brooks or American poetry.
- Deborah Gussman, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 287 pages
• Publisher: Univ Pr of Kentucky; First edition. edition (February 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813116597
• ISBN-13: 978-0813116594
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,975,253 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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