Mari Evans (born July 16, 1923) is an African-American poet, living in Indianapolis, Indiana.[1] In 1984 she edited one of the first critical books devoted to the work of Black women writers.[2]
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[hide]Education and teaching career[edit]
Born in Toledo, Ohio, Evans was 10 years old when her mother died,[3] and she was subsequently encouraged in her writing by her father, as she recalls in her essay "My Father's Passage" (1984).[4] She attended local public schools before going on to the University of Toledo, where she majored in fashion design in 1939, though left without a degree.[3] She began a series of teaching appointments in American universities in 1969. During 1969–70, she served as writer in residence at Indiana University-Purdue, where she taught courses in African-American Literature. The next year, she accepted a position as writer in residence at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. From 1968 to 1973, she produced, wrote and directed the television program The Black Experience for WTTV in Indianapolis.[5] She received an honorary degree from Marian College in 1975. Evans continued her teaching career at Purdue (1978–80), at Washington University in Saint Louis (1980), at Cornell University (1981–85), and the State University of New York at Albany (1985–86).
Writing[edit]
Mari Evans has written poetry, short fiction stories, children’s books, and theater pieces. She is also the editor of Black Women Writers (1950–1980): A Critical Evaluation (Anchor/Doubleday, 1984). She is known for her poems, one of which, called "When In Rome", is taught in many high schools and college English classes. The poem ends, "I'm tired of eatin' what they eats in Rome." The last line provides the poem with its famous title. It is a dialogue poem, between Mattie and her possible slave owner, offering her unfamiliar foods in the pantry. She is also well known for the line: "I have never been contained except I made the prison." Although her first and most renowned book of poetry, I am a Black Woman, was published in 1970, many of her poems preceded the Black Arts Movement by about 10–15 years, while coinciding with the Black Arts poets' message of Black cultural, psychological, and economical liberation; however, Evans does not fully align her writing with the movement. In her poem "I am a Black Woman", the second stanza reads: “I am a black woman tall as a cypress strong beyond all definition still defying place and time and circumstance assailed impervious indestructible.” Evans spoke of the need to make Blackness both beautiful and powerful.
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Mari Evans (b. July 16, 1923) grew up in Toledo, Ohio. She attended the University of Toledo.
Born in Toledo, Ohio, Evans was 10 years old when her mother died, and she was subsequently encouraged in her writing by her father, as she recalls in her essay "My Father's Passage" (1984). She attended local public schools before going on to the University of Toledo, where she majored in fashion design in 1939, though left without a degree. She began a series of teaching appointments in American universities in 1969. During 1969–70, she served as writer in residence at Indiana University-Purdue, where she taught courses in African-American Literature. The next year, she accepted a position as writer in residence at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. From 1968 to 1973, Mari Evans produced, wrote and directed the television program The Black Experience for WTTV in Indianapolis. She received an honorary degree from Marian College in 1975. Evans continued her teaching career at Purdue (1978–80), at Washington University in Saint Louis (1980), at Cornell University (1981–85), and the State University of New York at Albany (1985–86).
Among her books of poetry are A Dark and Splendid Mass (1992), Nightstar: 1973-1978 (1981), I Am a Black Woman (1970), and Where Is All the Music? (1968). Her books for children include Dear Corinne, Tell Somebody! Love, Annie: A Book about Secrets (1999), Singing Black: Alternative Nursery Rhymes for Children (1998, illustrated by Ramon Price) Jim Flying High (1979, illustrated by Ashley Bryan), Rap Stories (1974), and J.D. (1973, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney).
She is also the author of the plays Eye (a 1979 adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God) and River of My Song (first produced in 1977).
She is a contributor to and an editor of the volume Black Women Writers (1950-1980): A Critical Evaluation (1984), and has taught at colleges and universities including Spelman College, Purdue University, and Cornell University.
Among her honors are fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the John Hay Whitney Fellowship. In 1997, she was celebrated with her photo on a Ugandan postage stamp.
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