Life's Work
Mari Evans has written several poems, short fiction stories, children’s books, and plays. She is known for her many poems. One, called "When In Rome", is taught in many high schools and college English classes. The poem ends, "I'm tired of eatin' what they eats in Rome." The last line provides the poem with its famous title. It is a dialogue poem, between Mattie and her possible slave owner, offering her unfamiliar foods in the pantry. She is also well known for the line, "I have never been contained except I made the prison." Mari Evans was a part of the Black Arts Movement (BAM). The BAM poets spread the message of Black cultural, psychological, and economical liberation. In 1970, Evans wrote “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.
Other books of poems and poetry include:
- Night Star 1973-1978 (1981)
- Where is the Music (1968)
- A Dark and Splendid Mass, Harlem River Press (1992)
- I am a Black Woman (1970)
Children's books include:
- Dear Corinne, Tell Somebody! Love, Annie: A book about secrets (1999)
- Jim Flying High (1979)
- J.D. (1973)
- Singing Black: Alternative Nursery Rhymes for Children (1998)
- Rap Stories (1974)
Plays include
- Eyes, a musical based on Their Eyes Were Watching God (1979)
- River of My Song (1977)
- Portrait of a Man (1979)
- Boochie (1979)
Read more about this topic: Mari Evans
Famous quotes containing the words life and/or work:
“I sit astride life like a bad rider on a horse. I only owe it to the horse’s good nature that I am not thrown off at this very moment.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“Heaven has its business and earth has its business: those are two separate things. Heaven, that’s the angels’ pasture; they are happy; they don’t have to fret about food and drink. And you can be sure that they have black angels to do the heavy work like laundering the clouds or sweeping the rain and cleaning the sun after a storm, while the white angels sing like nightingales all day long or blow in those little trumpets like they show in the pictures we see in church.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)