first black woman to be appointed to be poetry consultant to the Library of Congress. Of her many duties, the most important, in her view, were visits to local schools. Similarly, visits to colleges, universities, prisons, hospitals, and drug rehabilitation centers characterized her tenure as poet laureate of Illinois. In recognition of her service and achievements, a junior high school in Harvey, Illinois, was named for her, and she was also honored by Western Illinois University's Gwendolyn Brooks Center for African-American Literature. In this recording, Brooks' confident musical voice emphasizes the rhythmical patterns of her poetry. On performing the poem 'We Real Cool', Brooks has said "The "We" - you're supposed to stop after the "We" and think about their validity, and of course there's no way for you to tell whether it should be said softly or not, I suppose, but I say it rather softly because I want to represent their basic uncertainty, which they don't bother to question every day, of course." The recording was made on January 19, 1961 at the Recording Laboratory, Library of Congress, Washington DC and is used with permission of the Library of Congress.