Gwendolyn Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas in 1917, but moved to Chicago with her family when she was still a new baby. She had kind of a rough time growing up. Her father was abusive and eventually died of a drug overdose, and she got suspended from several schools for being black. She eventually went to an all black school, and after that, an integrated high school. This gave her a big interest in race relations. She published her first poem at thirteen in a collection of childrens’ poems. Brooks did a lot of mentoring to young black poets, and also taught college, ran workshops for underprivileged people, and spoke at conferences. She became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize and was the Poet Laureate of Illinois. Gwendolyn Brooks used to hang out at the Golden Shovel tavern, where she came up with the idea for “we real cool”. After her death, Terrence Hayes invented a new poetic form in her honor, called the Golden Shovel form.