This event will celebrates the life and works of Gwendolyn Brooks, one of the most well-celebrated poets of the 20th century. We will be hosting her biographer, Angela Jackson.

Angela will be discussing thie life and works of Gwendolyn Brooks. Additionally, DePaul Theater School Alums will read selected vignettes from Maud Martha. The only novel she ever wrote, this book tells the story of a young black girl growing up in Chicago.

Angela Jackson is an award-winning poet, playwright, and novelist. In her most recent book, A Surprised Queenhood in the New Black Sun, Jackson delves deep into the rich fabric of fellow poet and Chicagoan Gwendolyn Brooks’s work and world. Granted unprecedented access to Brooks’s family, personal papers, and writing community, Jackson traces the literary arc of this artist’s long career and gives context for the world in which Brooks wrote and published her work. It is a powerfully intimate look at a once-in-a-lifetime talent up close, using forty-three of Brooks’s most soul-stirring poems as a guide.

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