35 Facts About Carolyn Rodgers

Carolyn Marie Rodgers was a Chicago-based writer, particularly noted for her poetry.

The youngest of four, Rodgers had two sisters and a brother, born to Clarence and Bazella Rodgers.

Carolyn Rodgers was a founder of one of America's oldest and largest black presses, Third World Press.

Carolyn Rodgers got her start in the literary circuit as a young woman studying under Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks in the South Side of Chicago.

Later, Carolyn Rodgers began writing her own works, which grappled with black identity and culture in the late 1960s.

Carolyn Rodgers was a leading voice of the Black Arts Movement and the author of eleven books, including How I got Ovah.

Carolyn Rodgers was an essayist and critic, and her work has been described as delivered in a language rooted in a black female perspective that wove strands of feminism, black power, spirituality, and self-consciousness into a sometimes raging, sometimes ruminative search for identity.

Carolyn Rodgers kept a journal throughout adolescence in which she explored poetry, but did not take writing seriously until she began college.

Carolyn Rodgers first attended college at the University of Illinois in 1960, but transferred in 1961 to Chicago's Roosevelt University, where she earned her BA degree in 1965.

Carolyn Rodgers later earned an MA in English from the University of Chicago in 1980.

Carolyn Rodgers is most well known for her writing contributions to the Black Arts Movement.

Carolyn Rodgers first became involved in writing during that period while attending Writers Workshops by the Organization of Black American Culture, of which she was an active member from 1967 to 1971.

The organization sought to promote city involvement and inclusion of the arts in the city of Chicago, which Carolyn Rodgers was eager to participate in.

Carolyn Rodgers became distinctive as a new black woman poet in the 1960s with the publication of her first two books, Paper Soul and Songs of a Blackbird.

Carolyn Rodgers won the Poet Laureate Award from the Society of Midland Authors in 1970.

Carolyn Rodgers then went on to receive an award from the National Endowment of the Arts, following the publication of Songs of a Blackbird.

Carolyn Rodgers won the Television Gospel Tribute in 1982 and the PEN Grant in 1987.

In 2009, Carolyn Rodgers was inducted into the International Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent at the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing.

In 2012, Carolyn Rodgers was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.

Carolyn Rodgers's poetry is recognizable for its themes, which included identity, religion, and revolution, and her own use of free verse street slang and concern with feminine issues.

Carolyn Rodgers used slang and heartfelt language to write about love, lust, body image, family, religion, and the grace of human kindness.

Carolyn Rodgers was criticized for her use of profanity, which male leaders of BAM found inappropriate for a woman.

Carolyn Rodgers was a revolutionary influence during the Civil Rights Movement for the black community and oppressed women.

Carolyn Rodgers was not afraid to stand up and fight for herself and her people, and she welcomed controversy:.

Carolyn Rodgers's poetry centered on declaring what black people needed to do to overcome their low status in society.

Carolyn Rodgers elocuted that women not stand for the poor treatment they received from men, black or white.

Carolyn Rodgers develops the individual tone so well that the reader experiences a kinship with the poet and her subject matter.

Carolyn Rodgers begins an intimate revealing of personal survival with the opening lines:.

Carolyn Rodgers carries the reader through experiences of crossing rivers while "eyelash deep," picturing the engulfing of ideas and socially accepted expectations of her as a black woman.

Just as the church-goers had already been calling each other brother and sister according to a higher authority, Carolyn Rodgers perceives an authority to which she can appeal who "ain't got no color".

Carolyn Rodgers renders powerless the restrictions placed on her by the color of her skin.

Consequently, by the time she publishes The Heart as Ever Green in 1978, Carolyn Rodgers is incorporating earlier themes of feminism and human dignity in her poems, along with newer or more pronounced themes of love and Christianity.

Carolyn Rodgers earned an appreciative and crucial audience through her fiction and literary criticism.

Carolyn Rodgers was successful in providing contemporary black readers with solace and encouragement to persist through her use of well-crafted language.

Carolyn Rodgers portrays in her short fiction the ordinary and overlooked people in everyday African American life and emphasizes the theme of survival.