"(At National Black Theater performance) I was in awe of the words I witnessed that day. It was the first time that I heard the works of writers like Gwendolyn Brooks, Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes, Amiri Baraka. I heard poetry that was about me, that was very immediate. I connected to it in a visceral way. That experience moved me so profoundly that I went home and that night I wrote my first batch of poems. It was like the floodgates opened. That reading empowered me with a voice and gave me permission to express everything that had been festering in me for years. So I just started experimenting with language and writing all kinds of things."
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Pulitzer Prize winnersWomen academics from the United States20th-century poets from the United States20th-century African-American womenPeople from Topeka
Original Language: English
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Sandra MarÃa Esteves interview (2001) in A Poet's Truth by Bruce Allen Dick
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gwendolyn_Brooks
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Gwendolyn Brooks
Gwendolyn Brooks (7 June 1917 – 3 December 2000) was an American poet. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Literature for her book of poems Annie Allen.
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