Mari Evans and Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement

By Georgene Bess Montgomery

I have loved Mari Evans ever since I read her incredible poem “Who can be born Black and not sing the joy, the challenge of it? Who can be born Black and not EXULT?” So succinctly expressed, those lines captured the beauty, power, and magic of Blackness. For Mari Evans, a poet whose work epitomized both the Black Arts Movement and the Black Power Movement, I wanted to participate in the NEH “Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement” to be immersed in poetry written by poets who perhaps were influenced by her work. 

The Seminar introduced me to more amazing poets whose brilliance and insightful examination took inside of Blackness to show us the beauty, the joy, the challenges of it, and told us to embrace it, to love it, and revel in it! I connected with scholars, some on a profound level like with my suitemate Tara Betts, whom I have invited to join via zoom a graduate class. I celebrate each time I see her on Facebook sharing another accomplishment—an invited lecture, a poetry reading, a new book of poetry. I teach the work of Tyehimba Jess and Evie Shockley. 

In so many ways, the Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement profoundly influenced me, as a person, a scholar, and a writer. I am indeed thankful that I was selected to be a participant.

Related:

• Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement: Reflections

The Importance of Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement

By Laura Vrana

I had the privilege of being involved in the institute as a doctoral student, when my dissertation was still in the early stages. The richly stimulating intellectual environment of those weeks was invaluable for helping to formulate what became my dissertation—which is now, as of just last year and after much revision, my first academic monograph! 

Conversations led by the institute’s visiting scholars left significant footprints on the thinking that has became the book’s foundation, particularly in terms of enriching how I historicize the early-21st-century African American poetic landscape through attention to the precursor period of the Black Arts Movement. And several of the relationships I forged with fellow participants (both faculty and graduate student peers) during conversations about poets like Tyehimba Jess and Brenda Marie Osbey over dinners or late-night snacks have led to enduring collaborations on co-edited volumes and lasting mentorships.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the career I am now making as a teacher-scholar of Black poetry would not have been possible without the initial willingness of those colleagues to invest in my growth, which has transformed into the bedrock of cherished friendships and professional guidance without which I would many times have felt lost in this field. I also regularly teach works by poets whose writing I first encountered during the institute. 

Related: 

• Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement: Reflections

Lasting Impacts of Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement

By Laura Vrana

On the occasion of the upcoming tenth anniversary of the July 2015 NEH-funded Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement institute, convened by Maryemma Graham, Howard Rambsy II, and others at the University of Kansas, we asked participants: What were the biggest takeaways or lasting effects of the institute for you?

Tara T. Green: 

The lasting impact has been the exposure I had to African American poetry. My area of research is African American fiction and autobiography. I knew little about contemporary poetry and was reluctant to add any to my syllabi. I now regularly teach contemporary Black poets in my literature and African American Studies undergraduate and graduate courses.

Jocelyn Moody: 

Most immediately, I think one of the most lasting effects of the NEH was that I include scholarship and poetry by Meta duEwa Jones, Mullen, and Shockley more often into my teaching. Attending their readings was a profound experience for me. In fact, I hosted Shockley as a visiting poet at my institution within a couple of years after our KU time. Then, as an autobiography scholar, I included a brief discussion of Mullen’s Urban Tumbleweed in a recent book chapter. Another aspect of the NEH that I valued was the variety of critical perspectives offered through the diversity of participants. I appreciated that we represented so many different (types of) institutions.

Richard Schur: 

The NEH seminar altered the trajectory of my teaching and transformed my understanding of African American literature. I came into the experience well-versed in African American literature and music and had organized my African American literature classes around them. The seminar opened my eyes to the power of African American contemporary poetry and its diversity. Upon returning back to my campus, I set out to revise my African American literature courses around poetry, especially the spoken word. The result has been my students have been able to become acquainted with a deeper roster of seminal texts, and they too have come to share my love of poetry. The experience rekindled my love of poetry and even got me creating my own poetry.

Jim Donahue: 

The most lasting effect of this institute has been the connections with people I made, some of which continue to this day. In addition to the friendships made - and kept alive over social media - these connections have led to various professional opportunities, perhaps most importantly in helping to build a larger network to boost the signal of the excellent work done by the various Institute participants. I have shared my own work and, even more importantly, have had the work of others brought to my attention through the continued efforts of signal boosting engaged by the Institute participants. I have had the good fortune to attend multiple NEH Institutes in my professional career, and the 2015 Institute on Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement continues to be the most active and engaged, 10 years after. This is a wonderful testament to all those involved."

Related:

• Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement: Reflections

Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement: Reflections

In July 2015, a group of us gathered, “Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement,” an NEH-funded Institute that sought to respond to “the resurgence of interest in contemporary poetry, its expanded production and wide circulation.” 

 Ten years later, Laura Vrana, Sequoia Maner, and I decided to produce a notebook of entries reflecting on the institute. 

Entries: 

• Lasting Impacts of Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement -- Tara T. Green, Joycelyn Moody, Richard Schur, and Jim Donahue

• The Importance of Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement -- Laura Vrana

• Mari Evans and Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement -- Georgene Bess Montgomery

Related 

• A Notebook on Black Poetry After the Black Arts Movement 

Building the Black Lit Network

We're discussing aspects of the Black Lit Network on June 17, at Washington University. 

The project began with a sketch of our Novel Generator Machine.

We eventually arrived at an updated version. 

At the time that we developed the Novel Generator, we worked on complementary work on novels and novelist.

• Covering Colson Whitehead 2016 - 2023

• The Largest Vocabulary Among Black Novels

• Black Panther Prints, Reprints, and Variants

• Sales and Reviews in First-Issue Comic Books

• Information on 100 African American Novelists

• A Dataset of Black Novels

• Scholarship produced on Toni Morrison

• Characters in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon

• The Abundant Scholarly Output of Trudier Harris

• Trudier Harris: An Ambassador of African American literary studies

UNCF Mellon

• The Spence Tree: Charting UNCF-Mellon PhDs and EdDs

• The Diverse Career Paths of UNCF Mellon Fellows

• Transforming Academia: The Impact of Mellon Fellows from HBCUs

• UNCF-Mellon & Career Possibilities

• Tracking 21 Books by UNCF-Mellon Fellows

• UNCF-Mellon English Majors & PhDs

The Poetic Art of Stacey Angelou Baraka?

Back in March, I mentioned the fierce verbal artistry of Stacey Patton, and here I am again. This time, a troll on Facebook remarked to Patton that "You are no Maya Angelou! So dumb sounding!"

You kinda hate to see such rude behavior, but the upside is Patton sometimes has the time to respond with a artful, comical composition. In this case, she remixed Maya Angelou's "Phenomenal Woman" for a stirring response.

Whereas Angelou opens with "Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. / I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size," Patton opens with "Racist white women wonder where my secret lies. I'm not sweet or here to soothe your fragile alibis."  

Patton continues with amusing reworkings of Angelou's famous poem. She reconfigures the toast mode of Black verbal artistry that Angelou employed in this case to respond to a troll. 

At one point, she writes, responding directly to her adversary, "You call me dumb but I saw your face. You look like mold grew shame into a race." And later still, "You say I sound dumb but I've stacked degrees. While you misquote scriptures and season with cheese." 

"I'm not Maya," writes Patton addressing her foe directly. "But here's what's true. She wrote poems. I write eulogies for MAGATs like you." 

Angelou closes her poem with "I’m a woman /Phenomenally. /Phenomenal woman, /That’s me." Patton closes her own version with this: I'm a woman--Phenomenally. Phenomenal Black woman, who dragged you dragged you poetically." 

If we're placing all of this into the history of Black poetry, we can link Patton with Angelou because of the poem. But then, there's some Amiri Baraka there too because he was the king of embedding hard-hitting insults into his poetry. Patton is unique, but in terms of Black verse, she's a cross between Maya Angelou and Baraka in this response. 

Related:

• The Fierce Verbal Artistry of Stacey Patton

Mollie Godfrey's Brave Humanism, re: Black Women Writers

From Hopkins to Hansberry. That is, from Pauline Hopkins, Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston, Ann Petry and Gwendolyn Brooks to Lorraine Hansberry. That's the thought I had when I finished Mollie Godfrey's Brave Humanism: Black Women Rewriting the Human in the Age of Jane Crow. 

Her book deals with generations of Black women ahead of those contemporary figures I usually focus on in my classes. So reading Godfrey's work provided me with all kinds of useful insight and information. 

On the subject of the history of Black women writer courses, I've done some blogging (2020), podcasting (2022), and short video work (2024). Godfrey's book gives me reason to go revise and extend my ideas. 

Just as important, Godfrey is pushing us forward by placing more writing by Black women into historical context, and framing the discussion in ways that links past writing to contemporary developments. 

Femme fatales, the Bechdel Test, and Multi-tasking Men

 

The (racially) mysterious man-eater and vamp trope. Literally! That is exactly what Mary is. Whoa. Thinking about her through this literally device, she was always going to be turned and then turn Stack. The trope made her do it.

Bad men and femme fatales…you better write, Coogler!

On your question of Coogler imagining a narrative where people paid attention to a visibly Black woman lead character like we do Mary…first thought is no, not his lane. Or let me put it in your own words: “it's also important to think about Mary based on some of what Coogler was doing with his main character(s).” Coogler’s women characters only matter as tools to flesh out the men’s inner lives. But, I’ll be fair and think on it more. --Cindy Reed

************************************ 

Well, don't think too long on Coogler's representations of women, as you'll end up a bit annoyed.

In the popular culture classes that Cali and I have taught, we're kind of obligated (in a good way) to reference the Bechdel Test. Well, Sinners fails that test in a big way. I don't think any women in the film speak to each other, and if they do, they don't talk about anything other than a man. Conversely, think about how many people that Smoke, Stack, and Sammie talk to. Men. Women. Children, Lovers. White people. Black people. Asian. What do the men talk about? Other Men. Business. Women. Sex. Negotiating. Traveling. Crime. Violence. Dreams. Racism. Regrets. Vengeance. --Howard Rambsy II

Related: 

• A Notebook on Sinners