Carolyn M. Rodgers

Carolyn M. Rodgers (born Dec. 14, 1940, Chicago, Ill., U.S.—died April 2, 2010, Chicago) was an American poet, teacher, critic, and publisher who is noted for a body of work that deepened and extended beyond the Black Arts movement in which she found her voice.

Rodgers grew up in the Bronzeville neighbourhood of Chicago and briefly attended the University of Illinois, where she first began to write poetry. While working as a social worker in Chicago, she participated in writing workshops sponsored by the poet Gwendolyn Brooks and by the Organization of Black American Culture, which introduced her to the burgeoning Black Arts movement. In 1967 Rodgers cofounded, with Don L. Lee (later known as Haki R. Madhubuti) and Jewel C. Latimore (later known as Johari Amini), Third World Press, dedicated to publishing African American literary works. The following year it released her first volume of poetry, Paper Soul. The free-verse collection was noted for its frequent use of black vernacular and even obscenities as part of a vivid illustration of African American female identity during a time of revolutionary social upheaval. Rodgers went on to publish Songs of a Black Bird (1969), a collection of poems that mined similar terrain but were more overtly concerned with her own quest for self-expression.

With how i got ovah: New and Selected Poems (1975), Rodgers moved away from the stridency that marks her early work and offered mature reflections on love, family, and religion, mostly from an autobiographical perspective. Critics praised her refined voice, and the book was a finalist for a National Book Award. The Heart as Ever Green: Poems (1978) added further nuance to Rodgers’s poetic style while exploring themes such as feminism and self-determination. In the late 1970s Rodgers established her own publishing outlet, Eden Press, through which she produced several other poetry collections, including Finite Forms: Poems (1985), Morning Glory (1989), and We’re Only Human (1994).

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Throughout her career she also wrote short stories and essays, and in 1982 a play she had written, Love, was performed Off-Broadway. A graduate of Roosevelt University, Chicago (B.A.), and the University of Chicago (M.A.), Rodgers taught literature and writing at a number of institutions, including Columbia College and Harold Washington College, both in Chicago.