The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks

Edited by Elizabeth Alexander (!) From the publisher: "Discover the most enduring works of legendary poet Gwendolyn Brooks—the first black author to win a Pulitzer Prize—in one collectible volume. 'If you wanted a poem,' wrote Gwendolyn Brooks, 'you only had to look out of a window. There was material always, walking or running, fighting or screaming or singing.' From the life of Chicago's South Side she made a forceful and passionate poetry that fused Modernist aesthetics with African-American cultural tradition, a poetry that registered the life of the streets and the upheavals of the 20th century. The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks traces the full arc of her career in all its ambitious scope and unexpected stylistic shifts."