“Poetry is life distilled.”

_Gwendolyn Brooks

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and Poet Laureate of Illinois Gwendolyn Brooks visited NIU Monday for a day of booksigning, workshops and a poetry reading.

“A Day With Gwendolyn Brooks” was sponsored by English honor society Sigma Tau Delta and the Campus Activities Board and cosponsored by nearly 20 other student organizations.

“We had a very good turnout for all of the events,” said Russ Needham, president of Sigma Tau Delta. “The hardest part was getting the money together to get her to come—so many different organizations contributed.”

Those organizations included the Black Student Union, Residence Hall Association, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, B.R.O.T.H.E.R.S. and University Honors.

Following a morning booksigning at the Holmes Student Center bookstore, a scheduled Black Theatre workshop performance and a poetry writing workshop (“very entertaining and good,” Needham said), Brooks gave a poetry reading at 8:00 p.m. in Sandburg Auditorium.

Over 300 people attended the reading, in which the 72 year-old poet demonstrated her rich oratorical skills and delivered her emotionally-charged poetry.

Brooks, also a Consultant-In-Poetry for the Library of Congress, shared nearly a dozen of her works with an enthusiastic and receptive audience.

Dressed in a vibrant purple dress and pinned with a white rose corsage, Brooks exuded the same vitality that characterizes her works in a post-reading interview.

Though she has received numerous awards and honors in her career (which has spanned over 50 years), Brooks said her greatest accomplishment is her family.

“I’m very glad I have my two children—I consider that a towering achievement,” she said, adding, “Then of course, I’m glad I wrote poetry. If I had to do everything over again I’d get out a pen and paper.”

In between autograph requests, Brooks said her greatest influences were her parents. “My mother and father were very supportive when they found out I was putting rhymes together. My mother said ‘you are going to be the lady Paul Laurence Dunbar’ (a famous black poet)—that was high praise in our house.”

Brooks explained inspiration for her work comes from almost anything. “Well, here—” she said, gesturing fans clustered around her. “I just look at them and ideas come. It can happen when friends talk to you, you look at t.v., even looking out a train window.”

Currently, Brooks is working on another work of poetry and a revision of the sequel to her autobiography. Does she see herself still writing in 10 or 20 years? “Until my last day,” she said, smiling. “In fact, you may find me collapsed at one of these podiums someday. I think it would be a successful way to go, don’t you?”