[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 19 (Thursday, February 13, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Page S1411]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       HONORING GWENDOLYN BROOKS

 Ms. MOSELEY-BRAUN. Mr. President, tomorrow evening, Howard 
University will be honoring and celebrating one of our Nation's most 
treasured poets, Gwendolyn Brooks. There, they will highlight her 
lifetime of accomplishment: Many awards, over 70 honorary degrees, and 
her status both as the first black Pulitzer Prize winner and Poet 
Laureate of Illinois. I would like to take a moment to add a few words 
of my own to the many that will be saluting her tomorrow.
  Like myself, Miss Brooks grew up on the south side of Chicago and 
attended Chicago public schools. Her parents loved literature and 
nurtured her early talent. She published her first poem when she was 
11, and the world of poetry was forever changed. Her work gave voice to 
an entire class of people who had not yet been heard, and who had so 
much to say.
  Her poetry has a soul of its own, sometimes whimsical, sometimes 
mournful, but always full of truth, and beauty. She writes of love and 
life and loss and liberty and lunacy and laceration. Her work is often 
provocative, and always inspirational. One of her most clever poems 
challenges its readers, shaking them out of complacence, preventing 
them from passively enjoying her art:

     A poem doesn't do everything for you.
     You are supposed to go on with your thinking.
     You are supposed to enrich the other person's poem with your 
           extensions,
     your uniquely personal understandings,
     thus making the poem serve you.

  However, Gwendolyn Brooks doesn't merely challenge readers, she 
challenges writers. For more than half a century, she has dedicated 
herself to nurturing the talent of young writers through her teaching. 
She sponsors annual poetry contests, using her own money for cash 
prizes. She is as generous with her time as her money, dispensing 
advice and answering questions posed by aspiring writers.
  Gwendolyn Brooks is not only one of America's greatest poets and a 
living legend, but an inspiration to many, myself included. One of the 
highlights of the day I was sworn in as a Senator 4 years ago was her 
reading of Aurora to me. Her words from that day live on in me as they 
do in anyone who has ever heard her speak.

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