BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT, AMIRI BARAKA, SONIA SAN-
CHEZ, NIKKI GIOVANNI, HAKI MADHUBUTI, ASKIA M.
TOURÉ, and ETHERIDGE KNIGHT, Evans’s poetry is
grounded in the social and political realities of
the black community. Highly experimental, it
embraces historical, political, and romantic love
themes. Her volumes include Where Is All the
Music? (1968), with its memorable “Black jam for
dr Negro”; I Am a Black Woman (1970), which
includes the popular “Who Can Be Born Black”;
Whisper (1979); her most innovative work, Night-
star: 1973–1978 (1981); and A Dark and Splendid
Mass (1992). The poems in A Dark and Splendid
Mass represent a new development in Evans’s po-
etic style; they are short romantic praises of the
uncommon courage of ordinary black people as
victim-survivors or heroes.
In addition to poetry, Evans has written in
other genres. Her fiction for children, J. D. (1973),
I Look at Me! (1974), Rap Stories (1974), Singing
Black (1976), and Jim Flying High (1979), repre-
sents a wholesome focus on the black community.
Her dramas are River of My Song (first produced
in 1977), Portrait of a Man and Boochie, a one-
woman performance (both 1979); the musical
Eyes, adapted from ZORA NEALE HURSTON’S THEIR
EYES WERE WATCHING GODS (first produced 1979);
and New World, a children’s musical (1984).
In 1984, Evans edited and contributed to Black
Women Writers (1950–1980): A Critical Evaluation,
a landmark work centering on 15 contemporary
black writers, including MAYA ANGELOU, GWENDO-
LY N BROOKS, AUDRE LORDE, ALICE CHILDRESS, LU-
CILLE CLIFTON, TONI MORRISON, PAULE MARSHALL,
SONIA SANCHEZ, ALICE WALKER, and MARGARET
WALKER. In more than 40 essays, each author pro-
vides autobiographical commentary on her own
literary development and visions of the future,
while a host of 20th-century critics, such as BAR-
BARA CHRISTIAN, ADDISON GAY L E, JR., Eugenia Col-
lier, DARWIN T. TURNER, and Jerry Ward, Jr., offer
their critical perspectives.
Evans has coauthored works and made numer-
ous contributions to leading anthologies published
in the 1970s, such as Dark Symphony: Negro Litera-
ture in America, Black Voices: An Anthology of Afro-
American Literature, 3000 Years of Black Poetry: An
Anthology, Afro-American Writing: An Anthology of
Prose and Poetry, New Black Voices: An Anthology of
Contemporary Afro-American Literature, and Black
Out Loud: An Anthology of Modern Poems by Black
Americans.
Evans has received numerous awards: the John
Hay Whitney Fellowship (1965–66), a Woodrow
Wilson Foundation grant (1968), the Indiana Uni-
versity Writers’ Conference Award, and the Black
Academy of Arts and Letters first annual poetry
award (both 1970) for I Am a Black Woman, as
well as a MacDowell fellowship (1975), the Build-
ers Award from the Third World Press in Chicago
(1977), an Indiana Committee for the Humanities
grant (1977), the Black Liberation Award from the
Kuumba Theatre Workshop in Chicago (1978), an
honorary doctorate of humane letters degree from
Marian College (1979), a Copeland fellowship at
Amherst College (1980), the Black Arts Celebra-
tion Poetry Award, Chicago (1981), the National
Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Award
(1981), and the Yaddo Writers Colony fellowship
(1984).
Noted as an award-winning writer with an au-
thentic voice for the black community, Evans, who
has produced creative works of unquestionable ar-
tistic excellence, has ensured herself a lasting place
among her contemporaries who, during the 20th
century, made innumerable contributions to Afri-
can-American life and culture. According to Evans,
“I write reaching for... what will nod Black heads
over common denominators. The stones thrown
that say how it has been/is/must be, for us.... I
write according to the title of poet Margaret Walk-
er’s classic: ‘for my people’... [and my] writing is
pulsed by my understanding of contemporary re-
alities” (Evans, 167–169).BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dorsey, David. “The Art of Mari Evans.” In Black
Women Writers 1950–1980: A Critical Evaluation,
edited by Mari Evans, 170–189. New York: Dou-
bleday, 1983.
Edwards, Solomon. “Affirmation in the Works of
Mari Evans.” In Black Women Writers 1950–1980:
A Critical Evaluation, edited by Mari Evans, 190–- New York: Doubleday, 1983.
Evans, Mari 173