Mari Evans work:
BIO: Evans was born
in Toledo, Ohio on July 16, 1923.. She was raised in a very traditional
black family. She attended the University of Toledo, and has been
married and divorced. Evans pursued a career in teaching, lecturing
on literature and writing in several schools in the Midwest and
East including Indiana University and Purdue. Mari Evans wrote,
produced and directed a television program called "The Black
Experience" for an Indianapolis television station. She won
many awards for her poetry. These awards include the Indiana University
Writers' Conference award, the Black Academy of Arts and Letters'
first annual poetry award. Shee wrote a play "River of My
Song", which was produced in 1977 and in 1979, the musical
"Eyes" (an adaptation of Their Eyes Were Watching God
( by Zora Neale Hurston). Evans published two collections of poetry,
"Nightstar:1973-1978" (in 1981) and "A Dark and
Splendid Mass" (in 1992). She is also a editor to other literature
collections. Some of Evans' poetry has even been choreographed
and used on records albums, filmstrips and the off-Broadway productions,
"A Hand Is on the Gate" and "Walk Together Children".
back to
Snally Gaster's African American Phat Library Experience
Not enough poems here? Email me your favorite works of the masters (no amateurs please).
Celebration (1993)
I will bring you a whole person
and you will bring me a whole person
and we will have us tiwce as much
of love and everything
I be bringing a whole heart
and while it do have nicks and
dents and scars,
that oly make me lay it down
more careful-like
An; you be bringing a whole heart
a little chipped and rusty an'
sometime skip a beat but
still an' all you bringing polish too
and look like you intend
to make it shine
And we be brinigng, each of us
the music of ourselves to wrap
the other in
Forgiving clarities
Soft as a choir's last
lingering note our
personal blend
I will be bringing you someone whole
and you will be bringing me someone whole
and we be twice as strong
and we be twice as true
and we will have twice as much
of love
and everything
Who
can be born black
and not
sing
the wonder of it
the joy
the
challenge
And/to come together
in a coming togetherness
vibrating with the fires of pure knowing
reeling with power
ringing with the sound above sound above sound
to explode/in the majesty of our oneness
our comingtogether
in a comingtogetherness
Who
can be born
black
and not exult!
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
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
When I
die
I'm sure
I will have a
BIg Funeral ...
Curiosity
seekers ...
coming to see
if I
am really
Dead ...
or just
trying to make
Trouble ...
Where have you gone
with your confident
walk with
your crooked smile
why did you leave
me
when you took your
laughter
and departed
are you aware that
with you
went the sun
all light
and what few stars
there were?
where have you gone
with your confident
walk your
crooked smile the
rent money
in one pocket and
my heart
in another . . .