Mari Evans’ “I Am a Black Woman”

Imani Newbill Professor Simms-Burton English 2140 21 March 2010 Mari Evans I Am a Black Woman Mari Evans is wizard of the most energetic and respected poets of the Black Arts movement (1850). The themes of her poems are very direct, but the simple lyrics make the poem eloquent (1850). Lost love, a lost Africa, failed relationships between foreboding(a) charwoman and black men are usually the tails of her poems (1850). Yet she also portrays that losses summon from us the heroism to struggle , to continue in the face of adversity and pain (1850). I Am a Black Woman whose title poem first appeared in Negro Digest, links the themes of black enslavement and impoverishment with the global oppression of the wretched (1850). The volume I Am a Black Woman harbinger the arrival of a poet who took her subject matter from the black community, and who celebrated its triumphs, especially the focus on the beauty of blackness that characterized the black arts and cultured rights movements. (G ale ) Therefore, concord Mari Evans themes and caliber fuels the richness of I Am a Black Woman.Mari Evans usually deals with the despair and loss of the African American citizen in her literary work. In I Am a Black Woman, Evans chooses to tell the story of the black woman. She portrays the roles and relationships of the black woman. Evans includes the story of all black womens pain, their fight for civil rights, the black lover, and the black mother. The narrator of this poem describes, in lines 1-4, the pain black women experience because they are black womanI am a black woman the music of my song some bracing arpeggio of tears is written in a minor key The music of my song/some sweet arpeggio of tears tells of the internal struggle of being a black woman. Also what it means to be a black woman. Evans portrays the despair felt from her husbands death in lines 11-12 when the narrator describes more pain I saw my mate leap screaming to the sea/ and I/with these hands/cupped the lifebreath/? from my issue in the canebrake.The mother receives more grief in lines 14-15 and heard my son scream all the way from Anzio/for Peace he never knew (Gates 1852). Evans tells of the pain of the black mother. The mothers who parturition the black children whose rights are being spit on and dragged through the dirt. The mother whose black sons who fight in wars for a country that despises the black skin that they stick at birth. This also portrayed in lines 16-17 learned Da Nang and Pork Chop Hill/? in disturbance (Gates 1852) Evans theme of pain of the black woman is clearly shown.Evans shows the blues of being a black woman in stanzas one and two, but in the last stanza she shows that even threw the pain and anguish black woman are passive tender I am a black woman ?tall as a cypress ? beardown(prenominal) beyond all definition still ?defying place ?and time and circumstance ?assailed ?impervious ?indestructible ?Look ?on me and be ?renewed Evans chooses a state-s upported persona to work through her understanding of what it means to be black in the Western world, and she hopes to inspire others through their witnessing her quest. Gale ) In line 29, the narrator indicates that as a black women are imperious and one can not set their boundaries Black women can not be boxed into in situations base on circumstance because the odds can be defied place time and the black womens indestructibility. The narrator is saying look at me defy the odds and anyone can be renewed because of the triumph from my despair. The narrator has most clearly defied the odds because of all the stress and drama that is in her life and she still stands strong. The nicety changes from stanza to stanza in the poem, I Am a Black Woman.The tone in the first stanza is filled with stress and she use humming to relieve the stress. She is actually holler in the first stanza. The tone of the second stanza is despair. She watches her mate and son die along with important figur es like Nat Turner (Gates 1852) In stanza two the narrator indicates, at once my nostrils know the gas/ and these trigger tire/d fingers (Gates 1852) . Again the tone is despair because she attempts and contemplates suicide. However, stanza threes tone is about renewal , inspiration and strength.She indicates look at me and my struggles and still I stand strong like a cypress tree. The tone of the poem is sad at the beginning and inspirational at the end. Evan remains strong to her themes of negative love affairs between black men and women and global perspective in her writing of I Am a Black Woman. However, the tone changes in this poem, and the lyrics are simple. An ultimately she provides encouragement and hope, which is still done in her poem I Am a Black Woman. Therefore, understanding Mari Evans themes and tone fuels the greatness of I Am a Black Woman.Works Cited Gates, Henry Louis Jr. and Nellie Y McKay, ed. Norton Anthology of African American Literature. 2nd ed. New York WW. Norton, 2004. 2096 Gates, Henry Louis Jr. and Nellie Y McKay, ed. I Am a Black Woman. Norton Anthology of African American Literature. 2nd ed,. New York WW. Norton, 2004. 1851-1852. Gates, Henry Louis Jr. and Nellie Y McKay, ed. The Black Arts Era 1960-1975. Norton Anthology of African American Literature. 2nd ed. New York WW. Norton, 2004. 1831-1850. Print.