Oct 18, 2013 10:55 AM EDT By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

Nora Brooks Blakely, daughter of the prominent poet, Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks, has donated her mother's archives, made up of 150 'big boxes' to the University of Illinois Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

The American Poet won the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for her collection 'Annie Allen' among many other prestigious honors.

Brook's was born in Kansas and was the poet laureate of Illinois for 32 years, until her death in 2000. She was appointed Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968 and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1985.

Valerie Hotchkiss, the director of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, said that apart from Brooks, the library also houses the archives of Carl Sandburg, another famous writer from Chicago and the state's poet laureate prior to Brooks.

Brook's archives would be integrated into classes at the university, elementary schools and high schools.

 "When students see a well-known work and they see little cross-outs or jottings or additions, that are a big thrill," Hotchkiss told NY Times. "Gwendolyn Brooks was very keen on getting poetry into the schools, and we're very keen on getting Gwendolyn Brooks and her creative process into the schools."

Brooks published her first poem in a children's magazine at the age of thirteen. She had a collection of around 75 published poems by the time she was sixteen. During the same time, she started sending her works to 'Lights and Shadows,' the poetry column of the Chicago Defender, an African-American newspaper. Her poems ranged from traditional ballads to sonnets and blues rhythms in free verse. Her characters in the poem often depicted the poor.

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