We are proud that our school is named after poet Gwendolyn Brooks. Ms. Brooks was a Pulitzer prize winning poet from Chicago. She was also the poet laureate of Illinois.

Ms. Brooks cared very much about children.As poet laureate, Ms. Brooks instituted an annual poetry contest for the school children of Illinois. Many Oak Park students, including students from the former Emerson Junior High (the school building formerly on our present location) won awards in this contest. Ms. Brooks always arranged for winning poems to be printed in Chicago newspapers, had an awards ceremony at the University of Chicago, and gave monetary awards from her personal resources. Several former Emerson students who had won these awards actively worked with the committee formed to name the school building to honor Gwendolyn Brooks.

Gwendolyn Brooks visited Oak Park school children several times. As pictured above, she spoke at District 97's Young Author's Conference in 1985, spoke at Julian Junior High, and spoke at the high school.

For more information about Gwendolyn Brooks see the following sites:

Poets.org:
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/165 This site has a brief biography, with links to some of Brooks' poetry, including a link to an audio file of Gwendolyn Brooks talking about, then reading "We Real Cool."

Artful Dodge:
http://www.wooster.edu/artfuldodge/interviews/brooks.htm . This site has an interview with Gwendolyn Brooks about her writing.