Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) was born in Topeka, Kansas, though she spent most of her life on Chicago’s south side, whose Bronzeville neighborhood she memorialized in her poetry. She received the Pulitzer Prize — the first African American so honored — for Annie Allen in 1950. One of her best-loved poems, “we real cool,” is about the short, sad lives of pool-playing truants. Brooks was devoted to encouraging young people to write.