Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brooks
1917- 2000
In what ways am I outside the mythical norm. The ways that I see Gwendolyn Brooks as a person who doesn’t let things get her down. She went after success and achieved it.   I too am going after my dream of being a drug and alcohol counselor. I haven’t been outside the mythical norm. My actions have led me to be in the mythical norm. The privileges I have received from being inside the mythical norm are the right to learn and grow from education. Gwendolyn Brooks is inside the mythical norm. She wasn’t oppressed as a writer she was always encouraged. She was privileged to have mentors that helped her put her work in the best place and to receive awards for her work. Gwendolyn Brooks is like me in the fact that she is a woman and mother. Unlike me she is black. We are from the same middle class. We are both heterosexual. We both have the ability to see what is right in the world and to focus on that. I have been inspired by her attitude of belief in herself. She always wrote and made sure her writings were read by all people. Even when she became more political in her writings she made sure that everyone could read her writings and understand them.
Brooks grew up in Chicago the daughter of a schoolteacher and a janitor. Her parents read to her and encouraged her to do well in school.   According to George kent she was “ spurned by members of her own race because she lacked social or athletic abilities, a light skin , and good grade hair.” Brooks spent most of her childhood writing. She received compliments on her poems and encouragement from James Weldon Johnson and Langston Hughes, some writers she corresponded with. By the age of 16 she had written over 75 poems.. She has remained associated with Chicago’s south side. Brooks attended Hyde Park High School, the leading white high school in the city, transferred to all black Wendell Phillips, then to integrated Englewood High school. These three school gave her a perspective on racial...