On Gwendolyn Brooks' birthday, a statue of the powerful poet unveiled

CHICAGO - When she was a young girl growing up on Chicago's South Side, Gwendolyn Brooks would sit on her back porch and write, her daughter said.

It was in that quiet space that Brooks could let her mind float away and she could focus on her words, said Nora Brooks Blakely.

Brooks grew up to become the first black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize, the first to serve as a poetry consultant to the Library of Congress. For more than 30 years she was the state's poet laureate.

And on Thursday, Brooks became the first Chicago-based black poet honored with a statue and memorial in a Chicago public park.