Mari Evans
| Mari Evans | |
|---|---|
| Born |
July 16, 1919 Toledo, Ohio |
| Died |
(aged 97) Indianapolis, Indiana |
| Occupation | Writer, poet, teacher |
Mari Evans (July 16, 1919 – March 10, 2017) was an African-American poet. In 1984 she edited one of the first critical books devoted to the work of black women writers, called Black Women Writers (1950–1980): A Critical Evaluation. Evans died at the age of 97 in Indianapolis, Indiana, on March 10, 2017.
Born in Toledo, Ohio, Evans was 10 years old when her mother died, and she was subsequently encouraged in her writing by her father, as she recalls in her essay "My Father's Passage" (1984). She attended local public schools before going on to the University of Toledo, where she majored in fashion design in 1939, though left without a degree. She began a series of teaching appointments in American universities in 1969. During 1969–70, she served as writer in residence at Indiana University-Purdue, where she taught courses in African-American Literature. The next year, she accepted a position as writer in residence at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. From 1968 to 1973, she produced, wrote and directed the television program The Black Experience for WTTV in Indianapolis. She received an honorary degree from Marian College in 1975. Evans continued her teaching career at Purdue (1978–80), at Washington University in Saint Louis (1980), at Cornell University (1981–85), and the State University of New York at Albany (1985–86).
Mari Evans wrote poetry, short fiction stories, children’s books, and theater pieces. She was the editor of Black Women Writers (1950–1980): A Critical Evaluation (Anchor/Doubleday, 1984), a groundbreaking work at that time.
Although her first and most renowned book of poetry, I am a Black Woman, was published in 1970, many of her poems preceded the Black Arts Movement by about 10–15 years, while coinciding with the Black Arts poets' message of Black cultural, psychological, and economical liberation; however, Evans did not fully align her writing with the movement. In her poem "I am a Black Woman", the second stanza reads: “I am a black woman tall as a cypress strong beyond all definition still defying place and time and circumstance assailed impervious indestructible.” Evans spoke of the need to make Blackness both beautiful and powerful.
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