A Surprised Queenhood in the New Black Sun: The Life & Legacy of Gwendolyn Brooks

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A look back at the cultural and political force of Pulitzer-prize winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks, in celebration of her 100th birthday

Over nearly six decades, Gwendolyn Brooks' poetry served as witness to the stark realities of urban life, the evils of lynching, the murders of Emmett Till and Malcolm X, and the revolutionary effects of the Civil Rights Movement. Hers was a unique and powerful voice, negotiating black womanhood and incomparable artistry with a restless literary world.

Brooks' brand of poetry took inspiration from the complex portraits of Black American life she observed growing up on Chicago's Southside. Her talent was recognized early, though, and brought her into the fold of fellow artists Langston Hughes and Richard Wright. It also brought her critical acclaim. Beginning with a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1946, Brooks received accolade after accolade. Most notable is her Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 1950; she is the very first African-American person to receive a Pulitzer.

Brooks flourished through the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and '70s as a prolific writer, teacher, and mentor. Her work remains popular on college syllabi around the country. She continues to be celebrated as one of the American literary icons of the twentieth century. A Surprised Queenhood in the New Black Sun dives deeply into the rich fabric of Brooks' world -- a life distilled in poetry and artistic generosity that holds true in the streets of Chicago, and far beyond.

Reviews

Jacksons sensitive portrait of this quiet genius and her finely calibrated insights into her writing celebrate Brookss warmth, her bitter bite, her slicing sarcasm, and the revolutionary provocation and power of her courageous, caring, intricately faceted poems, poems to read and reread for their emotional, social, and moral repercussionsand for their expounding beauty.
Donna Seaman, Booklist, Starred Review

[Jackson] provides criticism which situates Brookss poems in the social and political conditions of her time. What emerges is a portrait not just of a creative maverick, but also of an artist who constantly negotiated her womanhood and strove to tell the stories of ordinary black women.
The New Republic

This book will be of special interest to scholars and students but will also appeal to general readers who enjoy Brookss poetry and want to know more about her.
Library Journal

Angela Jacksons new biography of Gwendolyn Brooks, A Surprised Queenhood in the New Black Sun, does more than recount the iconic poets life and legacy: Its a lovingly written genealogy of Black activism and art.
Bitch

I love Gwen. She was a beacon to all of us. She was one of the most gracious people I know. She was, in fact, a poem. . . smooth. . . quiet. . . at a different level each time you saw the same words. What a pleasure it is for me to have been permitted to call her friend. I know Angela Jackson, also, and am so pleased she is the one to weave this quilt.
Nikki Giovanni

Such generosity of vision and scholarship, A Surprised Queenhood in the New Black Sun superbly contextualizes Gwendolyn Brookss life as a sustaining artist who possessed an immense communal spirit and served as a model of literary citizenship. Even more, Angela Jackson fiercely celebrates Brooks as mentor and unwavering light, one whose poetry was a lifeline and whose quiet deeds help to empower generations of American writers.
Major Jackson, Richard A. Dennis University Distinguished Professor, University of Vermont; author of Roll Deep: Poems

Angela Jackson frames the life and work of Gwendolyn Brooks with the attention and sensitivity perhaps only one poet can have for another. One of the greatest American poets of the twentieth century, Brooks had such a singular imagination that it would be folly to read her poems simply as products of her life experiences. And yet, we know Brooks drew inspiration for her work from people in the community around her. In A Surprised Queenhood in the New Black Sun, poet Angela Jackson has done something remarkable by illuminating the life and times that nourished Ms. Brookss poems, and doing so in a way that proves the poems all the more vital and inventive. This is a remarkable achievement.
Gregory Pardlo, Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry

Toni Morrison said we die, that may be the meaning of life, but we do language, that may be the measure of our lives. And how Miss Brooks did this thing called language. How she made us all look down the corridors of our birth. How she wore the rhythm of her name wide on green rivers of change. How she fashioned poems for us all from this bamboo wilderness called America. How she moved from city to city, restringing her words so we could live and breathe and smile and breathe and love and breathe her. This Gwensister called life.
Sonia Sanchez

Author Bio

Angela Jackson is an award-winning poet, playwright, and novelist. She is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including the National Book Award-nominated And All These Roads Be Luminous- Poems Selected and New. Her novel Where I Must Go won the American Book Award in 2009. Its sequel, Roads, Where There Are No Roads, was published in 2017. Additionally, Jackson was longlisted for the Pulitzer Prize and a longlist finalist for the PEN Open Book Award for her 2015 poetry collection, It Seems Like a Mighty Long Time. Other honors include a Pushcart Prize, Academy of American Poets Prize, TriQuarterly's Daniel Curley Award, and the Poetry Society of America's Shelley Memorial Award. Jackson lives in Chicago.