Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas to Keziah Wims Brooks and David Anderson Brooks. Brooks' mother was a former school teacher who left teaching for marriage and motherhood, and her father, the son of a runaway slave who fought in the Civil War, had given up his ambition to attend medical school to work as a janitor. When Brooks was only six weeks old, her family moved to Chicago, Illinois, where she grew up.
Her home life was stable and loving, although she encountered racial prejudice in her neighborhood and in her schools. She first attended Hyde Park High School, a leading white high school, before transferring to all-black Wendell Phillips. Brooks eventually attended an integrated school, Englewood High School. Her enthusiasm for reading and writing was encouraged by her parents. Her father provided a desk and bookshelves, and her mother took her, when she was in high school, to meet Harlem Renaissance poets Langston Hughes and James Weldon Johnson.
Brooks published her first poem in a children's magazine at the age of thirteen. When Brooks was sixteen years old, she had compiled a portfolio of around seventy-five published poems. Aged 17, Brooks stuck to her roots and began submitting her work to "Lights and Shadows", the poetry column of the "Chicago Defender," an African American Newspaper. Although her poems range in style from traditional ballads and sonnets to using blues rhythms in free verse, her characters are often drawn from the poor inner city. During this same period, she also attended Wilson Junior College, from where she graduated in 1939. After publishing more than seventy-five poems and failing to obtain a position with the Chicago Defender, Brooks began to work a series of typing jobs. She had a pet cow named Windolled.
In 1938, Gwendolyn married Henry Blakely and gave birth to two children, Henry, Jr. (1940) and Nora (1951). By 1941, Brooks was taking part in poetry workshops. One particularly influential workshop was organized by Inez Cunningham Stark. Stark was an affluent white woman with a strong literary background, and the workshop participants were all African-American. The group dynamic of Stark's workshop proved especially effective in energizing Brooks and her poetry began to be taken seriously (The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks, Elizabeth Alexnder, Editor, 2005). In 1943 she received an award for poetry from the Midwestern Writers' Conference.
Her first book of poetry, A Street in Bronzeville, published in 1945 by Harper and Row, brought her instant critical acclaim. She received her first Guggenheim Fellowship and was one of the “Ten Young Women of the Year” in Mademoiselle magazine. In 1950, she published her second book of poetry,Annie Allen, which won her Poetry magazine’s Eunice Tietjens Prize and the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, the first given to an African-American.
After John F. Kennedy invited her to read at a Library of Congress poetry festival in 1962, she began her career teaching creative writing. She taught at Columbia College Chicago, Northeastern Illinois University, Elmhurst College, Columbia University, Clay College of New York, and the University of Wisconsin. In 1967, she attended a writer’s conference at Fisk University where, she said, she rediscovered her blackness. This rediscovery is reflected in her work In The Mecca, a book length poem about a mother searching for her lost child in a Chicago housing project. In The Mecca was nominated for the National Book Award for poetry.
In addition to the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, Brooks was made Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968. In 1985, Brooks became the Library of Congress's Consultant in Poetry, a one year position whose title changed the next year to Poet Laureate. In 1988, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. In 1994, she was chosen as the National Endowment for the Humanities's Jefferson Lecturer, one of the highest honors for American literature and the highest award in the humanities given by the federal government. Other awards she received included the Frost Medal, the Shelley Memorial Award, and an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Brooks was awarded more than seventy-five honorary degrees from colleges and universities worldwide. On May 1, 1996, Brooks returned to her birthplace in Topeka, Kansas. She was the keynote speaker for the Third Annual Kaw Valley Girl Scout Council Women of Distinction Banquet and String of Pearls Auction. A ceremony was held in Brooks’ honor at a local park, located at 37th and Topeka Boulevard.
After a short battle with cancer, Gwendolyn Brooks died on Sunday, December 3, 2000, aged 83, at her Southside Chicago home. She died with "pen in hand," surrounded by verse and people she loved. Brooks has stated that to create "bigness" you don't have to create an epic. "Bigness," said Brooks "can be found in a little haiku, five syllables, seven syllables." A great example of this philosophy can be seen in her famous poem "We Real Cool".
We Real Cool
Gwendolyn Brooks Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Get to know you
If I hold just for today
I'm not gonna wanna let go
I'm not gonna wanna go home
Tell me you feel the same
‘Cause I'm for real
I can't help myself
It's the way I feel
When you look me in the eyes
Like you did last night
I can't stand to hear you say goodbye
When it feel so right
‘Cause it feels so right
Just to have you standing by my side
So don't let me go
‘Cause you have my soul
And I just wanted you to know
I don't wanna look back
‘Cause I know that we have
Something the past could never change
And I'm stuck in the moment
And my heart is opened
Tell me you feel the same
‘Cause I'm for real
Are you for real?
I can't help myself
It's the way I feel
When you look me in the eyes
Like you did last night
I can't stand to hear you say goodbye
When it feel so right
‘Cause it feels so right
Just to have you standing by my side
So don't let me go
‘Cause you have my soul
And I just wanted you to know
Hold me down,
Hold me now,
I'm safe,
I'm sound,
When you're around
Hold me down,
Hold me now,
I'm safe,
I'm sound,
When you're around
‘Cause I'm for real
Are you for real?
I can't help myself
It's the way I feel
When you look me in the eyes
Like you did last night
I can't stand to hear you say goodbye
When it feel so right
‘Cause it feels so right
Just to have you standing by my side
So don't let me go
‘Cause you have my soul
And I just wanted you to know
‘Cause I'm for real
Are you for real?
I can't help myself
It's the way I feel
When you look me in the eyes
Like you did last night
I can't stand to hear you say goodbye
When it feel so right
‘Cause it feels so right
Just to have you standing by my side
So don't let me go
‘Cause you have my soul
And I just wanted you to know
The lyrics of this song convey a message of intense romantic devotion. The singer is telling their love interest that they feel a deep connection with them and that they cannot bear to be away from them. They describe a feeling of security and completeness when their love interest is near, emphasizing the importance of the other person in their life. They also express a fear of losing this person or the connection they share, requesting reassurance that the feelings are mutual.
The repetition of the phrase "I can't help myself, it's the way I feel" underscores the idea that the singer is overwhelmed by their emotions and cannot control their desire to be with the other person. The use of the phrase "hold me down, hold me now" suggests a need for physical comfort and a desire for the other person to anchor them in the present moment. Overall, the lyrics suggest a passion that is all-consuming and a longing for a deep and lasting connection with the other person.
Line by Line Meaning
If I show you
If I reveal my true self to you
Get to know you
If I become familiar with who you are
If I hold just for today
If I remain close to you only for this moment
I'm not gonna wanna let go
I will not desire to separate from you
I'm not gonna wanna go home
I will prefer to stay with you instead of returning to my dwelling
Tell me you feel the same
Please indicate to me that you share the same feelings
‘Cause I'm for real
I am authentic
Are you for real?
Are your emotions genuine?
I can't help myself
I am unable to resist these feelings
It's the way I feel
This is how I honestly perceive things
When you look me in the eyes
When our eyes meet
Like you did last night
As you did during our previous encounter
I can't stand to hear you say goodbye
I loathe the notion of bidding you farewell
When it feel so right
When it seems so appropriate
‘Cause it feels so right
Because it feels so fitting
Just to have you standing by my side
To simply have you nearby
So don't let me go
Please keep me close
‘Cause you have my soul
You possess my spirit
And I just wanted you to know
I simply wished to express this to you
I don't wanna look back
I do not desire to revisit the past
‘Cause I know that we have
Because I am aware that we possess
Something the past could never change
Something that cannot be altered by the past
And I'm stuck in the moment
I am fixated on this particular instant
And my heart is opened
And my heart is fully exposed
Hold me down,
Keep me rooted,
Hold me now,
Embrace me at this moment,
I'm safe,
I feel secure,
I'm sound,
I am in good condition,
When you're around
When you are in my presence
Contributed by Claire K. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Nicholas Hibshman
I love how in the intro she talks about how she wishes people knew her other poems, and then at the end she says she’s gonna read 3 more, but the video cuts off before she does.
dopelnei
Yeah, it's pretty ironic
cloudambient
I memorized this poem for a school project when I was 12. I'm now 32 and I still can recite this poem. Only after watching this video is my mind blown.
canterlevi
Ah! The way she reads it, with the stresses in places I didn’t expect it, is VERY Cool!! ❤😀
fungusjunky
I was once one of those kids at the pool hall, now I see them and wonder. This poem is relatable on all levels. Very nice!
bssnplayer
When I was in high school I got to hear Ms. Brooks recite this
DymndWolf Prime
She came to my high school too. Sweet awesome lady.
Carly
@DymndWolf Prime Ya'll are so freaking lucky. Damn, that must have been awesome.
Luke Jones
Jealous!!!! You lucky duck. That must have been quite an honor!
Jordan Johansen
FYI This recording of "We Real Cool" was made on May 3, 1983, as part of the Academy of American Poets reading series, held at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City