Ms. Gwendolyn 'Pulitzer' Brooks

The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry is the highest and most well-known award given for poetic works. On May 1, 1950, the Pulitzer Prize Board announced that Brooks had won for Annie Allen. Critical reviews of the collection had been mixed but the responses from her fellow poets were full of praise. Brooks’s day planner records in dizzying excitement the congratulations she received; the official certificate was signed by Columbia University President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In a 1987 interview, she remarked, “That’s why I am as well known as I am today. Sometimes, I feel that my name is Gwendolyn ‘Pulitzer’ Brooks.”