"In addition to writing poetry, Evans has written articles and essays, as well as children's books and plays. She has been a professor at universities, including Cornell University, Indiana University, Spelman College, Purdue University, State of New York at Albany, University of Miami at Coral Gables, and St. Louis. In 1997, she was celebrated with her photo on a Ugandan postage stamp. She was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2002 for the liner notes she wrote for The Long Road Back To Freedom: An Anthology of Black Music." --Wilkipedia“Idiom is larger than geography; it is the hot breath of a people singing, slashing, explorative. Imagery becomes the magic denominator, the language of a passage, saying the ancient unchanging particulars."
--Mari Evans, poet
Evans has lectured on literature, written, directed and produced a television program called “The Black Experience,” written a play (“River of My Song”), a musical based on Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God” and taught at Indiana University, the State University of New York at Albany, the University of Miami at Coral Gables and at Spellman College, Atlanta.
She has won numerous awards for her poetry, including the Indiana University Writers' Conference award, the Black Academy of Arts and Letters' first annual poetry award.
The poem “I Am a Black Woman” speaks to the pain of the black experience but also the resilience of black women.
I am a Black Woman
I am a black woman
the music of my song
some sweet arpeggio of tears
is written in a minor key
and I
can be heard humming in the night
I saw my mate leap screaming to the sea
and I/with these hands/cupped the lifebreath
from my issue in the canebrake
I lost Nat's swinging body in a rain of tears
and heard my son scream all the way from Anzio
for Peace he never knew....I
learned Da Nang and Pork Chop Hill
in anguish
Now my nostrils know the gas
and these trigger tire/d fingers
seek the softness in my warrior's beard
I am a black woman
tall as a cypress
strong
beyond all definition still
defying place
and time
and circumstance
assailed
impervious
indestructible
Look
on me and be
renewed
To me, "Speak the Truth" is self-explanatory. But Evans says:
"Hearing the truth can free the mind so people can concentrate on constructive work. This poem admonishes blacks to be truthful in speech so audiences can "identify the enemy," distance themselves from conventions that enslave African Americans, and build a strong black nation with its own ideals."
Speak the truth to the people.
Speak the truth to the people
Talk sense to the people
Free them with honesty
Free the people with Love and Courage for their Being
Spare them the fantasy
Fantasy enslaves
A slave is enslaved
Can be enslaved by unwisdom
Can be re-enslaved while in flight from the enemy
Can be enslaved by his brother whom he loves
His brother whom he trusts whom he loves
His brother whom he trusts
His brother with the loud voice
And the unwisdom
Speak the truth to the people
It is not necessary to green the heart
Only to identify the enemy
It is not necessary to blow the mind
Only to free the mind
To identify the enemy is to free the mind
A free mind has no need to scream
A free mind is ready for other things
To BUILD black schools
To BUILD black children
To BUILD black minds
To BUILD black love
To BUILD black impregnability
To BUILD a strong black nation
To BUILD
Speak the truth to the people
Spare them the opium of devil-hate
They need no trips on honky-chants.
Move them instead to a BLACK ONENESS.
A black strength which will defend its own
Needing no cacophony of screams for activation
A black strength which will attack the laws
exposes the lies, disassembles the structure
and ravages the very foundation of evil.
Speak the truth to the people
To identify the enemy is to free the mind
Free the mind of the people
Speak to the mind of the people
Speak Truth
Books of poetry by Mari Evans:
1. A Dark and Splendid Mass (Harlem River Press, 1992)
2. Nightstar: 1973-1978 (1981)
3. I Am a Black Woman (1970)
4. Where Is All the Music? (1968)
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5 comments:
the music of my song
some sweet arpeggio of tears
is written in a minor key
What a voice. Thanks for sharing Evans' poem, MacDaddy. I miss blogging but am working many hours and my computer bit the dust.
My best to you, always.
Stella: I miss your voice on my blog and others as well. Hurry back to us.
Anon: Now i like this one too.
Anon: I'm curious: what specifically did you like about this post? Which poem did you like? What is it about her writing that grabs you and will not let go? Thanks for dropping by.
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