GWENDOLYN BROOKS may not be a household name. She should be. Her words sang and sometimes spat the black experience in America, from the 1940s to today. She died Sunday of cancer at the age of 83.

Kitchenette Building. Gwendolyn Brooks was an African-American, born in 1917. She won the Pulitzer Prize for her second book of poetry and was the first African American to win it for any kind of ...

July episode “The Poetry of Close Quarters” focuses on Gwendolyn Brook’s ode to low-rent living, “kitchenette building,” discussed by […] Skip to content. All Sections.