Gwendolyn Bennett was an American artist of paintings and literature. Although she wrote several novels and worked for a publishing company for some time, Bennett also wrote poems in her spare time. Some of her most famous poems are those included in Odyssey: A Journal in Negro Life which was a poetry collection trying to better explain to the world the Harlem Renaissance. Born in 1903 and living for 77 years until 1981, Gwendolyn Bennett was a huge advancer in the literary field, her poems gaining recognition across America.
Many of the works by Gwendolyn Bennett are not just fun poems, rather those that encompass a deep and meaningful theme. Many of her works have details that relate to her own life, especially her Odyssey Poems, because she grew up as an African American in a bad neighborhood. Quatrains is another poem that talks about her emotions, stating that she can only express herself through painting and writing, because any other way would seem meaningless. Bennett has created a unique type of poem that both relates to herself and to the reader while still being impactful.
