|
The
Passing of Poet
Carolyn Marie Rodgers
(December 14, 1940—April 2, 2010)
Carolyn Marie Rodgers, poet,
playwright and author of ten collections of poetry
and short fiction, died April 2, 2010. She will be
missed by her family and many friends. A memorial
service is being planned for May 4, 2010 in Chicago,
IL.—
Legacy
* * * *
*
Rodgers was a founding member and a major writer of
the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC)
and had her own publishing company, Eden Press.
Besides being the author of nine books including
How I got Ovah and
The Heart as Ever Green,
Carolyn was one of the founders of Third World Press
along with Jewel Latimore, and Haki R. Madhubuti.
Her off Broadway play Love was directed and
produced by Woodie King and Ron Milner in 1982 at
the New Federal Theater in New York City.—FuneralDigest
* * * *
*
Carolyn
Rodgers, a Chicago poet . . . was distinctive as a
new black woman poet in the late 1960s, when she
published her first two books, for her vehement
adherence to the Black Arts program.—Karen
Ford
* * * *
*
attended the University of Illinois in 1960, but
transferred to Chicago's Roosevelt University one
year later and received her BA in 1965. She began
writing as a college freshman. In 1980, she earned a
master's degree in English from the University of
Chicago. She achieved a national reputation as a
writer whose works largely relate to her concern
with feminist issues and a particular concern for
Black women.
Her poems include "Paper Soul" (1968) and "Songs of
a Blackbird" (1969) which hold a strong thematic
connection to the ideologies of Black revolutionary
thought. Her works also include comments on the
roles of women, female identity, and the
relationships between mother and daughter. Following
the publication and success of
Paper Soul, Rodgers
was presented with the first Conrad Kent Rivers
Memorial Fund Award (1968). After the publication of
Songs of a Blackbird, Rodgers received the Poet
Laureate Award from the Society of Midland Authors
in 1970. Rodgers also received an award from the
National Endowment of the Arts. Two other volumes of
her poetry,
The Heart As Ever Green (1978)
and
how I got ovah (1975) also shed light on
these and other feminist issues.—Voices
From the Gaps, Department of English, University of
Minnesota
* * * *
*
This organization [OBAC], .
. . was guided principally by the late Hoyt W.
Fuller, Jr., then editor of Black World, and
served, if only temporarily, to arrest the
psychological frailty of Carolyn Rodgers, who was
"slim and straight, and as subtly feminine as a
virgin's blush." Fuller recalled that when he first
met her at an OBAC social function, she was "skinny
and scared," verbalized an interest in writing, and
telegraphed a need to be stroked. Being the
unhealthy flower she was, Carolyn Rodgers responded
naturally to his quiet mood and healing voice. (. .
.) The format of the OBAC workshops helped cushion
Rodgers' insecurities; its members provided a strong
support system for each other. It was as a member of
this literary coterie, this small in-group of novice
writers and intellectuals, that she made her initial
impact.
In introducing her first volume
of poetry,
Paper Soul, Fuller prepared us for
what was to come: "Carolyn Rodgers will be heard.
She has the artist's gift and the artist's beautiful
country." This first period of her writing includes
her first three volumes,
Paper Soul, 2
Love Raps, and
Song of a Black Bird. It
is characterized by a potpourri of themes and
demonstrates her impudence, through the use of her
wit, obscenities, the argumentation in her love and
revolution poems, and the pain and presence of her
mother. She questions the relevance of the Vietnam
War, declares war on the cities, laments Malcolm X,
and criticizes the contradictory life-style of
Blacks. And she glances at God. These are the years
that she whipped with the lean switch, often
bringing down her wrath with stinging, sharp, and
sometimes excruciating pain.—Bettye
J. Parker-Smith, "Running Wild in Her Soul: The
Poetry of Carolyn Rodgers," Black Women Writers
(1950-1980): A Critical Evaluation, ed. Mari
Evans (New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1984), pp.
395-97
* * * *
*
Carolyn
Rodgers' poetry has received more than mild critical
interest for some time. It was considered special
well before 1976, when her collection,
how I got ovah, was a National Book Award nominee. Yet
since that time, Rodgers' reputation has spread
considerably. Her poetry is tightly crafted free
verse that unpretentiously combines the black
American vernacular and the straightforward American
style. It is absent of fashionably extreme
attitudes, and achieves a distinct presence by
cementing private poetic vision with grim but
poignant understanding. In
The Heart as Ever Green , this fusion of poetic vision and
spiritual compassion is extremely pronounced,
producing a kind of contemporary black American
poetry that is warmly honest, immediately direct,
and clearly accessible. . . .
The Heart as Ever Green is a poetic statement on the condition,
attitude, and determination of black people. Carolyn
Rodgers has given us a strong, dignified, and
beautiful book of poems. At the core of this work is
a sensibility that is framed in the notion that
black suffering will be alleviated in time. That may
be an accurate, perceptive, and honorable belief,
but is nonetheless one that not all black
contemporary poets would agree with.—Walter
Sublette, "Poetic Voices of Hope and Rage,"
Chicago Tribune Book World, 19 November 1978,
p. 10.
* * * *
*
Works by the
Author
Morning Glory: Poems (1989)
Finite Forms (1985)
Eden and Other Poems (1983)
The Heart as Ever Green (1978)
how I got ovah: New and Selected Poems (1975)
2 Love Raps (1969)
Songs of a Blackbird (1969)
A Statistic, Trying to Make it Home (1969)
Paper Soul (1968)
Blackbird in a Cage
(1967)
* * * *
*
Works about
the Author
Antar Sudan Katara Mberi. "Reaching for Unity and
Harmony," Freedomways. First Quarter, 1980.
Evans, Marie, ed.
Black Women Writers. Garden City: Anchor
Doubleday, 1984.
Henderson, Stephen.
Understanding New Black
Poetry. New York: William Morrow, 1973.
Lee, Don L.
Dynamic Voices: Black Poets of the
1960's. Detroit: Broadside Press, 1971.
Randall, Dudley.
The Black Poets. New York:
Bantam, 1971.
Rushing, Andrea Benton. "Images
of Black Women in Afro-American Poetry. "
Black
World, XXIV (September 1975), 18-30.
Ward, Jr., Jerry.
Trouble
the Water: 250 Years of African-American Poetry. New York:
Signet, 1997.
Source:
Voices
* * * *
*
|
Black Women Writers
Edited by Marie Evans
This unique volume provides
each writers reflection on her work, an evaluation of that
writer by two perceptive critics, and detailed biographical and
bibliographical data. Included are Maya Angelou, Toni Cade
Bambara, Nikki Giovanni, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and ten
other outstanding writers.
This unique volume provides
each writers reflection on her work, an evaluation of that
writer by two perceptive critics, and detailed biographical and
bibliographical data. Included are Maya Angelou, Toni Cade
Bambara, Nikki Giovanni, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and ten
other outstanding writers. |
 |
* * * *
*
|
Testament
By Carolyn M. Rodgers
child,
in the august of your life
you come barefoot to me
the blisters of events
having worn through to the
soles of your shoes.
it is not the time
this is not the time
there is no such time
to tell you
that some pains ease away
on the ebb & toll of
themselves.
there is no such dream that
can not fail, nor is hope our
only conquest.
we can stand boldly in burdening places
(like earth here)
in our blunderings, our bloomings
our palms, flattened upward or pressed,
an unyielding down.
* * * *
*
East of New Haven
By Carolyn M. Rodgers
you see so many
graveyards around
these little towns—
out in the open
spaces & places.
i guess big
cities
have not enough
space for the
living,
let alone
the dead.
there is so
much
water here
and back home
in
chicago we
would call
them rocks,
lying all on the ground(s)
lots of rocks
around/but
you would call
them
stones here.
see how much
smoother
the world is.
the farther
east we
go
the more frequent
are the stops
at rich small
quaint towns
and the more frequent
are the
admonitions to “watch one’s
ticket on the
rack above the seat
or to be very
sure to take it with
you if you
leave your seat!”
apparently,
the very wealthy,
steal.
as i ride the
train
watching the
many white students
eating out of
brown paper
sacks, saving
their now
money so that
they can
be the very
wealthy later
oon, also.
Carolyn M. Rodgers,
“East of New Haven” from The Heart As
Ever Green (Garden City: Anchor
Press/Doubleday, 1978).
* * * *
*
Breakthrough
By Carolyn M. Rodgers
I've had tangled feelings lately
About ev'rything
Bout writing poetry, and otha forms
Bout talkin and dreamin with a
Special man (who says he needs me)
Uh huh
And my mouth has been open
Most of the time but
I ain't been saying nothin but
Thinking about ev'rything
And the partial pain has been
How do I put my self on paper
The way I want to be or am and be
Not like any one else in this
Black world but me
* * * *
*
It Is Deep (don't never forget the
bridge that you crossed over on)
By Carolyn M. Rodgers
Having tried to use the
witch cord
that erases the stretch of
thirty-three blocks
and tuning in the voice which
woodenly stated that the
talk box was "disconnected"
My mother, religiously girdled in
her god, slipped on some love, and
laid on my bell like a truck,
blew through my door warm wind from the
south
concern making her gruff and
tight-lipped
and scared
that her "baby" was starving.
she, having learned, that disconnection
results from
non-payment of bill (s).
She did not
recognize the poster of the
grand le-roi (al) cat on the wall
had never even seen the books of
Black poems that I have written
thinks that I am under the influence of
**communists**
when I talk about Black as anything
other than something ugly to kill it
befo it grows
in any impression she would not be
considered "relevant" or "Black"
but
there she was, standing in my room
not loudly condemning that day and
not remembering that I grew hearing her
curse the factory where she "cut uh
slave"
and the cheap j-boss wouldn't allow a
union,
not remembering that I heard the tears
when
they told her a high school diploma was
not enough,
and here now, not able to understand,
what she had
been forced to deny, still--
she pushed into my kitchen so
she could open my refrigerator to see
what I had to eat, and pressed fifty
bills in my hand saying "pay the talk
bill and buy
some food; you got folks who care about
you . . ."
My mother, religious-negro, proud of
having waded through a storm, is very
obviously,
a sturdy Black bridge that I
crossed over, on. |
* * * *
*
"What made her
important was her unique use of language and her
descriptions of our community," said Haki
Madhubuti, a poet and the founder of
Third World Press,
which published two early books by Ms. Rodgers,
Paper Soul‚ and Songs of a Blackbird‚
"When she read, people would sit up and take
notice. Men gravitated toward her like she was a
Corvette."
By the late '60s she
had begun to modify her thinking, shifting from
a collective black perspective to an individual
one. In the poem "Breakthrough" she
addressed her own poetic evolution in progress .
. .
Her best-known book,
How I
Got Ovah: New and Selected Poems,
a finalist for the
National Book Award
in 1976, described her rejection of the
revolutionary she once was and the blanket fury
that accompanied much of the black power
rhetoric of the '60s. In its place was an
embrace of churchliness and spirituality, though
not without a vivid sensuousness, as though she
had found in Christianity the acceptance of her
womanhood that the movement denied. "I think
sometimes/when i write/God has his hand on me,"
she wrote in the poem "Living Water"‚ "i am his
little black slim ink pen."
NYTimes
* * * *
*
|
I do pray that God will grant us the
strength to accept the passage of Carolyn Rodgers
into a new life.
Jerry
Carolyn
Rodgers's warm and generous nature touched me when I
met her back in the early 1970's. May her spirit
continue to bless us.
Jeannette
Oh my, i was
just watching her read "Affirmations," what a
beautiful, sweet sound, such tremendous gifts!, may
peace be upon her and all those who so deeply loved
her!
Sis Marpessa
Oh no! I am so
sorry to hear this! But spirits don't die! Her soul
is still here and God willing, will be provided
another body to follow on her mission.
Nicole 'Iguehi' Oribhabor
Love and
lessons can never be lost.. even when lives are. The
message and power of her words will guide us future
poets through the dark. Our African Sky just got
back a star or better yet an angel . . .
Ashley Rose
|
 |
Yes, we
remember Carolyn fondly as a great sister and poet
of the Chicago Black Arts Movement. She was there
when I came through underground from Toronto, Canada
as a draft resister. She was an integral part OBAC,
along with Haki Madhubuti, Gwen Brooks, Hoyt Fuller
and others. We will remember you, Carolyn, peace and
love,
Marvin X
* * *
* *
|
Books by Sam
Greenlee
The Spook Who Sat By the Door /
Ammunition! Poetry and Other Raps
Baghdad Blues: A Novel /
Blues for an African Princess
"Be-bop man/be-bop woman" 1968-1993: Poetry and
other raps
* * *
* *
Blues for
Carolyn Rodgers
By
Sam
Greenlee
I sit there listening and
you shuffle the papers, clear your throat and the poetry comes
out of your well-shaped, thick lips set in your angular,
ebony-chiseled black face, the ear rings dangling along side the
long black neck, a pulse beating at the base of your black
throat and I dig what you’re saying and it is put together very
hip and someone says, let’s see how it looks on the page and it
looks good, the black typewriting sprinkled across the white
page like black, hungry, angry African ants on Tarzan’s white
ass with no Jane with no insecticide around.
And then you start talking
about it and I think, damn, baby! Why don’t you write the way
you talk, talking that South Side Black street talk with the
vowels spread like a woman’s welcoming thighs; the consonants
cool; recalling the hot black dirt of the Mississippi delta and
New Orleans shrimp gumbo, corn bread and collard greens; up
through Memphis and St. Louis on the A freedom train north to
Chicago on the I. C. railroad; sittin’ up front in the Negro car
behind the engine to catch the grit and shit in the fried
chicken and Cole slaw in a paper sack. Store front churches on
South State Street before the Dan Ryan sat dying there like a
big sick snake; old Comiskey Park and the Negro League All-Star
game and Satchel Paige kicking his long foot high; the Regal,
Rhumboogie, Grand Terrace, and the De Lisa and Earl Hines with
Bird and Jug and Klook and Billie Eckstine and Sarah at the El
Grotto cabaret in the basement of the Pershing Hotel and my
mother, Desoree, the headliner!. A whole South-Side history in
the way you talk, so why write that history in prose as stiff as
White folks dancing?
Then one night you shuffle
the papers and clear your throat and you singin', baby, singin’
in that South Side rhythm I ain’t found no place else and I been
around the world! Singin’, baby, a South Side blues and just so
I don’t think it’s a mistake; you sing another one, a store
front church gospel song; the Black words leaping off the white
page and through you and it has all come together for you, the
words and rhythms as Black as your ideas; yes, you singing, baby
and don’t never stop! Baby, what you say!
Monday, August 23, 2010 at 12:06pm |
* *
* * *
Sam
Greenlee—novelist, poet, screenwriter,
journalist, teacher and talk show host—was born 13 July 1930 in Chicago.
He attended Chicago public schools. At age fifteen, Greenlee
participated in his first sit-in and walked his first picked line. His
social activism continues. In 1952, Greenlee received his B.S. in
political science from the University of Wisconsin and the following
year attended law school. He transferred to the University of Chicago to
study international relations from 1954 to 1957. In 1957, he began a
seven-year career with the U.S. Information Agency as a foreign services
officer, serving in Iraq, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Greece, and in 1958
he was awarded the Meritorious Service Award for bravery during the
Baghdad revolution.
Greenlee's novel
The Spook Who Sat By the Door, was published in 1968.
Prize-winning its fictionalization of an urban-based war for African
American liberation became an underground favorite. Greenlee co-wrote a
screenplay adaptation of the novel, and in 1973
The Spook Who Sat by
the Door was released on film. The film was an overnight success
when it was released but was unexpectedly taken out of distribution.
Greenlee has written numerous novels, stage plays, screenplays and
poems. He moved back to Chicago after several years of voluntary exile
in Spain and West Africa and is hosted a radio talk show program. He is
presently working on his autobiography.
* * *
* *
 |
Panel on Literary Criticism
26 March 2010
National Black Writers Conference
Patrick Oliver, Kalamu ya Salaam,
Dorothea Smartt, Frank Wilderson discuss
the use of literature to promote
political causes and instigate change
and transformation. The event is at the
Medgar Evers College at the City
University of New York.
C-Span Archives
Panel on Politics and Satire
26 March 2010
National Black Writers Conference
Herb Boyd, Thomas Bradshaw, Charles
Edison and Major Owens discuss how
current events are reflected in the
writings of African Americans. The
event is at the Medgar Evers College at
the City University of New York.
C-Span Archives |
* * *
* *
posted 12 April 2010 |
