She sent her early poems to both Langston Hughes and James Weldon Johnson, and both elder poets responded with letters of encouragement.
Gwendolyn Brooks was born in Topeka on June 7, 1917, to David Anderson Brooks, the son of a runaway slave, and Keziah Corinne (née Wims), and raised in Chicago. Brooks began writing poetry in her teenage years and published her first poem in American Childhood magazine.
