Seminal Poet of Black Arts Movement dies
I was shocked and saddened to learn . . .*
DevotionReader Series: 30 Ways of Looking at Black Poetry
Newark, for Now (68) - Carolyn Rodgers
*Comment: I was shocked and saddened to read today in the NY Times of the death of poet Carolyn Rodgers. The sight of her name in the obituary section let out an alarm and intense feeling inside me, like that skip of a heart beat a child feels when, musing among a crowd of people at the mall, or on a busy street, or pursuing some amusement at the state fair, she hears her mother’s voice sing out clear as a bell above the din in an unmistakable way that says, “come here.”
Carolyn Rodgers was a voice that rang out above the crowd in its own unique style. She was one of a few poets I was introduced to in elementary school in the Sixties, right at the start of the Black Arts Movement that transitioned me and my classmates from being little Negro children to being Black and proud and beautiful, baby.
Among the pantheon of bodacious Black poets my classmates and I poured over as sources for book reports and recitations in third grade, Carolyn Rodgers caught our attention because of her bold voice and frankly her unconventional spellings, characteristic of the Black aesthetic of artistic self-expression at the time. Mainly, the technique endeared us to Rodgers because we felt that she attempted to speak to us, to capture the way a lot of us sounded when we talked on the playground and on our blocks. One of her poems, “Portrait,” was a favorite at these times; it was written in non-standard English and in the rhythm of a child’s voice. In simplistically describing the story of a mother saving money for college, the child paints a noble depiction of the depth of that mother’s self-sacrifice and love for her children:
“mama spent pennies
and nickels
and quarters
and dollars
and one life.
mama spent her life
in uh gallon milk jug
fuh four black babies
college educashuns.”
A few of us would try to recite the poem and found plenty of laughter in trying to get the “uh” s and “fuh”s just right. Underneath our mimicking, though, we were secretly a little embarrassed by the intimation of Black poverty, but more so, we respected the mother who put pennies in a milk jug for her children’s “educashuns,” knowing that some of our classmates’ mothers, or even our own, were doing a similar thing, working hard and keeping the same faith that they could provide the opportunity for us that they did not have.
Carolyn Rodgers was best known for her highly acclaimed book of poems, “How I Got Ovah: New and Selected Poems,” (1976). Her themes often focused on African American women and the challenge of maintaining individual strength and self-affirmation in the face of loneliness and invisibility. Carolyn Rodgers was also a teacher at several colleges in Chicago and a literary critic. She received a bachelor’s degree from Roosevelt University in 1965 and a master’s degree from the University of Chicago in 1980.
Devotionreader.com 30 Days of Looking at Black Poetry -- Day: One O Black and Unknown Bards Two Listen Children Three For the Record Four Ballad of Birmingham Five Six The Idea of Ancestry Seven I Want to Write Eight A Grandfather Poem Nine Sweet Sound Ten My Brother is Homemade Eleven Those Winter Sundays Twelve SOS Thirteen Resurrections Fourteen Jessie Mitchell's Mother Fifteen April Rain Song Sixteen I've Got A Home in that Rock Seventeen Earth Screaming Eighteen Returning Spring Nineteen Newark, for Now [68] Twenty Dawn Twenty-One Fir Twenty-Two Comin Strong Twenty-Three From a Black Feminists Conference Reflections on Margaret Walker: Poet Twenty-Four My Africa Twenty-Five Strong Men Twenty-Six Today's News Twenty-Seven My Guilt Twenty-Eight Forward, Always Forward Twenty-Nine The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa Thirty What Harriet Said
