A
Gwendolyn Brooks was the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Gwendolyn Brooks wrote hundreds of poems during her lifetime. She was known around the world for using poetry to increase understanding about black culture in America.
Her poems described conditions among the poor, racial inequality and drug use in the black community. She also wrote poems about the struggles of black women. But her skill was more than her ability to write about struggling black people. She was an expert at the language of poetry. She combined traditional European poetry styles with the African American experience.
In her early poetry, Gwendolyn Brooks wrote about the South Side of Chicago. The South Side of Chicago is where many black people live. In her poems, the South Side is called Bronzeville. It was A Street in Bronzeville that gained the attention of literary experts in 1945. Critics praised her poetic skill and her powerful descriptions of the black experience during the time. The Bronzeville poems were her first published collection.
In 1950, Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. She won the prize for her second book of poems called Annie Allen. Annie Allen is a collection of poetry about the life of a Bronzeville girl as a daughter, a wife and a mother. She experiences loneliness, loss, death and being poor. Ms Brooks said that winning the prize changed her life.
Her next work was a novel written in 1953 called Maud Martha, Maud Martha received little notice when it was first published. But now it is considered an important work by some critics. Its main ideas about the difficult life of many women are popular among female writers today.
In some of her poems, Gwendolyn Brooks described how what people see in life is affected by who they are. One example is this poem, Corners on the Curing Sky.
By the end of the 1960s, Gwendolyn Brooks’s poetry expanded from the everyday experiences of people in Bronzeville. She wrote about a wider world and dealt with important political issues.
【文章大意】本文讲述了首位获得普利策诗歌奖的非裔美国诗人Gwendolyn Brooks的写作题材、风格以及她的著名作品。
1. What does the text mainly talk about?
A. The life of Gwendolyn Brooks.
B. The understanding about black culture.
C. The poems of Gwendolyn Brooks.
D. The struggles of black women.
【解析】选C。主旨大意题。整篇文章讲了美国诗人Gwendolyn Brooks的写作题材、风格以及她的著名作品。故C项正确。
2. What can we learn about Gwendolyn Brooks from the second paragraph?
A. She mainly wrote about the struggles of black women.
B. Her poems were mainly about the African experience.
C. Her writing skills were a little worse than her ability.
D. She was good at using the language of poetry.
【解析】选D。细节理解题。根据第二段的最后两句我们知道: 格温多林·布鲁克斯是诗歌语言的专家, 她把传统的欧洲诗歌的风格和非裔美国人的经历结合在一起。可推知选D项。
3. How does the author mainly develop the passage?
A. By providing examples.
B. By using statistics.
C. By comparing opinions.
D. By describing her experiences.
【解析】选A。推理判断题。整篇文章作者用诗人各个时期的作品来体现她的写作风格和题材。故选A项。
4. What would the author most probably talk about in the next part?
A. The difficulties Gwendolyn Brooks would meet.
B. The poems related to political issues.
C. The awards Gwendolyn Brooks gained.
D. The racial inequality the black had to face.
【解析】选B。推理判断题。文章的最后一段提到她的诗歌涉及政治话题, 下文可能会和这样的内容有关。故选B项。
【知识拓展】长难句分析
In some of her poems, Gwendolyn Brooks described how what people see in life is affected by who they are.
分析: 在described之后是how引导的宾语从句。在宾语从句中, what引导主语从句, 在介词by后也是一个宾语从句。
翻译: 在她的诗歌中, 格温多林·布鲁克斯描述了人们在生活中所见到的是如何被他们是谁影响的。
