Mari Evans

Evans, Mari, poet, dramatist, short fiction writer, children's writer, editor, essayist, and lecturer. Since the 1960s, Mari Evans has produced a body of works unique for its personal sensitivity, political tenor, and precisely crafted diction and structures. Although principally known for her poetry, Mari Evans's dramas have had repeated productions over the years, and her children's books have been noted as models for unobtrusively premising a constructive, nurturing worldview. Her essays and lectures are marked by explicit political commitment, cogent logic, and quiet fervor.

Evans was born in Toledo, Ohio, in 1923. Her father proved to be a tremendous early influence upon her, and she recounts in an autobiographic essay, “My Father's Passage”(1984), how he saved her first story. She had written it while in the fourth grade, and it had appeared in the school paper. Her father not only saved it, but noted with pride his daughter's achievement. “My Father's Passage”is also important because Evans emphasizes her perception of writing as a craft, a professional occupation.

Evans attended public schools in Toledo as well as the University of Toledo. Although she studied fashion design, she did not pursue it as a career option. Her attention turned instead to poetry, almost unintentionally she asserts. Fortuitously she began her professional writing career as an assistant editor in a manufacturing firm where precision and discipline are imperative. Even in her first, intensely personal volume Where Is All the Music? (1968), this discipline is evident. These are poems celebrating all aspects of personal love affairs, from love at first sight to the endurance that masters disappointment and loneliness. Also evident is a hallmark of Evans's style: dispassionate language conveying profoundly moving fact and feeling.

Having received a Woodrow Wilson grant in 1968, Evans began the first of what would become a series of appointments in American universities in 1969. She was an instructor at Indiana University at Purdue, where she taught courses in African American literature and served as writer in residence. In 1970 she published I Am a Black Woman (incorporating most of the poems from Music), a more complex collection divided into titled sections that gradually expand focus to embrace the whole African American community. The first two sections concern romantic love. The next two treat victims of society's injustices and indifference, especially children. The final and longest section, “A Black Oneness, A Black Strength”draws the most overtly political inferences from this exploration of love. The effect of the poems is cumulative; although each poem is a complete, self-sufficient entity, it is enriched by its position among the others. The success of the poetry in 1970 was matched by Evans receiving an award for the most distinguished book of poetry by an Indiana writer.

Between 1970 and 1978 Evans was assistant professor and writer in residence at Indiana University, Bloomington, where she continued to write and publish, and to be recognized for her achievements. She received an honorary degree from Marion College in 1975, and she resided for a time at the MacDowell Colony. She had a visiting assistant professor appointment at Purdue University between 1978 and 1980, the same year she also had an appointment at Washington University in St. Louis, and she has visited at Cornell, SUNY Albany, and Spelman College.

In 1981 she published Nightstar 1973–1978-, which is also arranged in titled sections that progress from the personal to the communal and political. These poems employ more experimental techniques: more complex exploitation of typography (capitalization, indentations, length of phrase or line); more expansive use of rhetorical figures such as anaphora, reiteration, direct exhortation to the reader (using “we”, not “you”; a greater diversity of speakers and portraiture; careful use of African American idiom in ways that foster the reader's respect for and identification with the speaker. Throughout, Nightstar reveals rather than claims heroism and grandeur as well as the simple joys of African American life.

Evans has combined teaching, writing, and publishing with many other activities. She directed The Black Experience, a television program in Indianapolis, between 1968 and 1973. She has consulted for agencies such as the National Endowment for the Arts (1969–1970), as well as for the Indiana Arts Commission (1976–1977). She is a popular and much-sought lecturer, and she has made repeated appearances at the National Black Writers Festival held biannually at Medgar Evers College.

A Dark and Splendid Mass (1992) represents a new development in Evans's poetic style. The only poems of romantic love celebrate the decisive rejection of perfidious lovers. All the poems are short paeans to the indomitable courage of ordinary suffering people. With a variety of personae, situations, locales, abuse, or deprivations, the poems convincingly convey the emotive perspective of the victim-survivor or hero. The book ends with poems of hard-nosed faith and hope.

Black Women Writers 1950–1980, A Critical Evaluation (1983), edited by Evans, is a unique anthology treating fifteen writers. For each there is an autobiographical statement of artistic intent, two essays of different critical perspectives, and a “bio-selected bibliography”.The text holds a wide spectrum of African American critical approaches to very diverse authors.

The kind of professional service that Evans provided by becoming an anthologist is matched by her commitment to community service. She is active in movements for prison reform and against capital punishment, especially in some specific egregious cases. She works with local community organizations and with theater groups. She has a demanding lecture schedule. These activities express in action an implication that pervades her writing: that self-fulfillment for the African American must include identification with the deprived, the oppressed, and efforts to enhance the health and strength of the community.

This emphasis on a wholesome perspective on the African American community is seen in Evans's books for children, I Look at Me (1973), JD (1973), Singing Black (1976), and Jim Flying High (1979). Text and illustrations are carefully integrated to reinforce this impression. Unfamiliar words are introduced in self-explanatory contexts, and the stories encourage the reader to exult in selfhood and community.

Among her dramas, Rivers of My Song (first performed in 1977), Portrait of a Man and Boochie (both 1979), and Eyes (1979), an adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, have all received several productions in various American cities. The first is ritualistic theater combining music, dancers, and actors using both poetry and prose. The form is an excellent example of traditional African American theatrical productions. Portrait of a Man uses a divided stage. On one side we see episodes in the experience of a courageous and industrious young African American man, an experience that includes several instances of the perfidy of white Americans. Interspersed among these episodes, on the other side of the stage, we see a querulous old man confronting an impatient, offensive nurse. The two men are, of course, one, and through various allusions, the man's reliance on African American values and culture is demonstrated.

Boochie is mainly a monologue of an old woman preparing dinner for her son, Boochie, a paragon of success, duty, and affection. With deft control of revelations and peripety, the audience is led to recognize very specific consequences of social forces such as welfare, addictions, and unemployment. The drama hangs on an extremely shocking climactic event and our understanding of its causes. As in each of the other plays, vivid characterization, precisely realistic detail, and a strong but assailed African American community provide the basis for the clear political implications of the plot.

Perhaps the genius of Mari Evans centers on her succinct, specific portrayals of the human spirit, and her moral premise that evil is both personal and institutional and must be fought in all its spheres.

Bibliography

• David Dorsey, “The Art of Mari Evans”, in Black Women Writers 1950–1980, ed. Mari Evans, 1983, pp. 170–189.
• Solomon Edwards, “Affirmation in the Works of Mari Evans”, in Black Women Writers, 1950–1980, ed. Mari Evans, 1983, pp. 190–200.
• Wallace R. Peppers, “ Mari Evans”, in DLB, vol. 41, Afro-American Poets since 1955, eds. Trudier Harris and Thadious M. Davis, 1985, pp. 117–123

David F. Dorsey, Jr.

poet; writer; educator

Personal Information

Born Mari Evans, on July 16, 1923, in Toledo, OH; married and divorced; children: William, Derek.
Education: studied fashion design at the University of Toledo.
Memberships: First World Foundation, African Heritage Studies Association, Authors Guild, Authors League of America.

Career

Instructor in African American literature and writer in residence, Indiana University-Purdue, 1969-70; assistant professor of African American literature and writer in residence, Indiana University-Bloomington, 1970-78; visiting assistant professor, Northwestern University, 1972-73; visiting assistant professor, Purdue University, 1978-80; visiting assistant professor, Washington University, St. Louis, 1980; visiting assistant professor, Cornell University, 1981-83; assistant professor and distinguished writer, Cornell University, 1983-85; associate professor, State University of New York-Albany, 1985-86; visiting distinguished writer, Miami University, Coral Gables, 1989; writer in residence, Spelman College, 1989-90.

Life's Work

Poet and writer Mari Evans initially gained fame in 1970 when her second collection of poetry, I Am a Black Woman, was published. "The volume heralded the arrival of a poet who took her subject matter from the black community," Wallace R. Peppers wrote in Dictionary of Literary Biography, "and who celebrated its triumphs, especially the focus on the beauty of blackness that characterized the black arts and civil rights movements, and who would mourn its losses, especially the deaths of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X." Since then, Evans has published several volumes of poetry and children's books, and written for television, radio, and the theater. Her work has appeared in over 30 textbooks and has been translated into several languages, including German, Swedish, French, and Dutch.

Evans was born on July 16, 1923, in Toledo, Ohio. As she was growing up, her father was her greatest influence. Evans recalled in the essay "My Father's Passage," which was included in Black Women Writers (1950-1980): A Critical Evaluation, that her father saved her "first printed story, a fourth-grade effort accepted by the school paper, and carefully noted on it the date, our home address, and his own proud comment." After attending public school in Toledo, Evans enrolled at the University of Toledo, where she majored in fashion design. However, the subject did not hold her attention for long, and she left without taking a degree.

Beginning in the mid-1960s, Evans began to make her name in the public arena. From 1965 to 1966, she was a John Hay Whitney fellow. Three years later, she received a Woodrow Wilson Foundation grant. From 1968 to 1973, Evans was the producer, director, and writer for the highly acclaimed television program "The Black Experience" for WTTV in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Began to Publish Poetry

In 1968, Evans published her first volume of poetry, Where Is All the Music? Like many African American poets of the time, she celebrated her heritage while rejecting the conciliatory attitude of African American poets from the 1920s and 1930s. "Though she was born during the Harlem Renaissance, Mari Evans' poetry reveals little of the inclination toward compromise with white values and forms that was cherished by most black intellectuals of that period," Alan R. Shucard wrote in Contemporary Poets. "Quite the contrary, her work is informed by the uncompromising black pride that burgeoned in the 1960s." In the poem "Who Can Be Born Black," Evans showed her awareness of the differences between Harlem Renaissance poets and poets of her own generation. Evans' poem is a response to Countee Cullen's mid-1920s sonnet, "Yet Do I Marvel," a long list of the horrors God has created, the worst of which is "To make a poet black, and bid him sing." In contrast, Evans wrote, "Who/can be born black/and not/sing/the wonder of it/the joy/the/challenge. . .Who/can be born black/and not exult!"

In 1970, Evans published her second poetry collection entitled I Am a Black Woman, which brought her wide critical attention, and an award for the most distinguished book of poetry by an Indiana writer. Each of the poems in the collection is written from the viewpoint of a different character, and marked her movement toward more politically-based poetry. This is most evident in her third volume of poetry, Nightstar: 1973-1978, which was published in 1981. "At the heart of Mari Evans' Nightstar is a questioning of the ways in which we know ourselves and are known, and a recognition of the subtleties of identity," Romey T. Keys wrote in the book's introduction. "Her language can compass a range of people and things, sounds and sights, places and times."

Entered the World of Academia

Evans launched her academic career in 1969, which has included positions at several prestigious universities. From 1969 to 1970, she was an instructor in African American literature and writer in residence at Indiana University-Purdue. The following year, Evans moved to Bloomington, Indiana, and accepted a job as assistant professor of African American literature and writer in residence at Indiana University. She taught at Indiana University until 1978. From 1972 to 1973, she combined her job at Indiana University with an appointment as a visiting assistant professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Her academic career continued with teaching appointments at Purdue University from 1978 to 1980, at Washington University in St. Louis in 1980, at Cornell University from 1981 to 1985, and at the State University of New York-Albany from 1985 to 1986. Evans has also taught at Miami University-Coral Gables, and Spelman College in Atlanta.

Apart from the world of academia, Evans has served as a consultant to several organizations. From 1969 to 1970 she worked with the Discovery Grant Program for the National Endowment for the Arts. She also served as a consultant in ethnic studies for the Bobbs-Merrill Publishing Company from 1970 to 1973.

In addition to poetry, Evans has written plays, essays, and short fiction. Choreographed versions of two of her plays, A Hand Is on the Gate and Walk Together Children, have had successful off-Broadway runs. She has written several books for children, including J.D. (1973), I Look at Me! (1974), Singing Black (1976), and Jim Flying High (1979). Evans also edited an anthology, Black Women Writers (1950-1980): A Critical Evaluation, which was published in 1984.

By the mid-1980s, Evans' place in the annals of African American literature was assured. As Peppers wrote in Dictionary of Literary Biography: "Her volumes of poetry, her books for adolescents, her work for television and other media, and her recently published volume on black women writers between 1950 and 1980 ensure her a lasting place among those who have made significant contributions to Afro-American life and culture."

Awards

Selected Awards: John Hay Whitney fellow, 1965-66; Woodrow Wilson Foundation grant, 1968; Indiana University Writers Conference Award, 1970; First Annual Poetry Award, Black Academy of Arts and Letters, 1970; Copeland Fellow, Amherst College, 1980; National Endowment for the Arts grant, 1981-82.

Further Reading

• Contemporary Authors, Gale Research, 1989.
• Contemporary Poets, St. James Press, 1980.
• Dictionary of Literary Biography, edited by Trudier Harris and Thadious M. Davis, Gale Research, 1985.
• Nightstar, 1973-1978, by Mari Evans, Center for Afro-American Studies, University of California-Los Angeles, 1981.

— Carrie Golus

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