This weekend, a friend at AWP passed on to me the sad news that
Carolyn M. Rodgers had passed away.
She was either 65 or 69*. A few years ago, in the fall of 2007, I
wrote about a mini-symposium that my colleague
Ed Roberson had hosted at the university focusing on the Chicago branch of the
Black Arts Movement. One of the revelations for me and others at that event was Rodgers, whom Ed described as one the BAM's "metaphysical" poets. Rogers had studied with Pulitzer Prize-winner
Gwendolyn Brooks, and had helped to found the Third World Press, before starting her own press,
Eden Press, some years later. A graduate of Roosevelt University and the University of Chicago, she had taught at a number of schools in the area, including
Malcolm X and
Harold Washington Colleges, and
Columbia College Chicago. Though less well known than many of her peers, she was an accomplished poet, and published 9 books, including
Paper Soul, Songs of a Black Bird and
how I got ovah. At
John Murillo's book party, poet
Randall Horton told me he was working with Rodgers on putting out a new chapbook of her work, and spoke of how excited she was that and other, future projects.
According to the
Huffington Post, there will be a memorial celebration for her on May 4 (6 p.m. , at the eta Creative Arts Foundation, 7558 S. South Chicago Ave., Chicago), during which poets will read her work, and I hope to attend it.
