Conversations with Gwendolyn Brooks features sparkling interviews with one of America's most valued poets. Throughout this book, which spans three decades, Brooks (1917-2000) speaks with simplicity, depth, candor, and passion about the making of a poem and about the position of the poet in humane society.

A poem, she believed, comes from the heart. In each interview, she speaks from the heart and wins over the reader. The interviews took place in various settings-in radio recording studios and in university classrooms, in the coveted spotlight of...