“Everything Is Here and Now”: the Polyvocal Poetry of Naomi Long Madgett

“Everything is Here and Now”: The Polyvocal Poetry of Naomi Long Madgett by © 2019 Morgan McComb B. A., University of Mississippi, 2014 Submitted to the graduate degree program in English and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. ________________________________________________ Chair: Dr. Ayesha Hardison ________________________________________________ Dr. Giselle Anatol ________________________________________________ Dr. Tony Bolden Date Defended: 25 April 2019 The thesis committee for Morgan McComb certifies that this is approved version of the following thesis: “Everything is Here and Now”: The Polyvocal Poetry of Naomi Long Madgett ________________________________________________ Chair: Dr. Ayesha Hardison Date Approved: 25 April 2019 ii Abstract Naomi Long Madgett—poet, editor, professor, and Detroit Poet Laureate—has a poetic career that spans over sixty years. Despite this, her work is rarely engaged critically. This thesis aims to present new scholarship on Madgett that engages her both within the context of the Black Arts Movement as well as the Womanist movement in literature. “The New Black Poetry: Naomi Long Madgett, “Newblack,” and the Search for Black Aesthetic(s)” examines the poem “Newblack” from Madgett’s collection Pink Ladies in the Afternoon (1972), a poem that responds the arguably prescriptive dictums of the Black Arts Movment of the 1960s and 1970s. Written through the narrative lens of a Black Arts Movement critic, Madgett explores the tension between the Black Arts Movement’s determinations for what qualifies as Black art and the individual perspective and directives of the artist. Through a nuanced exploration of both poetic form and aesthetic and ideological concerns, Madgett’s “Newblack” reifies her own beliefs as both a poet and editor in respecting the individuality and unique vision of the artist. I extend Madgett’s work during this period to create a literary lineage between her poetic concerns and the New Black Aesthetic Movement of the 1980s and 1990s, conceptualized most famously by poet and critic Trey Ellis, as well as Madgett’s import and connection to Evie Shockley’s critical volume Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry (2011) and her poetry collection the new black (2011). “Singing a Dual Song: The Legacy of Phillis Wheatley and Naomi Long Madgett’s Sense of Place Poetry” also charts a literary lineage between Madgett and other Black writers, examining Madgett’s connection to Alice Walker’s In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens (1983) and the Womanist Movement in literature alongside other foundational Black Feminist scholars such as Barbara Christian, Carol Boyce Davies, bell hooks, and Layli Phillips. This article examines Madgett’s poem “Phillis” from her collection iii Exits and Entrances (1978), a narrative poem written from the poet Phillis Wheatley’s perspective. Through a reimagined narrative history, Madgett explores what Alice Walker calls Wheatley’s “contrary instincts,” a set of complex and often conflicting understandings of personal identity. Madgett imagines Wheatley’s revelation of her own “dual song” in her connection to both America and Africa. In this article, I tie these concepts of “contrary instincts” and the idea of a “dual song” to Carol Boyce Davies’s concept of “migratory subjects” from her book Black Women, Writing, and Identity: Migrations of the Subject (1994) in order to argue that Madgett moves our understanding of divided loyalties beyond a recognition of physical geography into a spiritual, artistic realm that defies space and time and connects Black women writers in a unique way. Finally, included in this thesis is the transcript from the interview I conducted with Naomi Long Madgett on July 15th, 2017, at her home in Detroit. iv Acknowledgements I first and foremost want to thank each member of my thesis committee. They were all present and/or involved in the inception of this project, and their support throughout this process has been essential and invaluable to my work. I would also like to thank the founder of the Project on the History of Black Writing, Dr. Maryemma Graham, for her unwavering support and essential mentorship. Finally, I would like to thank Casey Keel and Mikaela Warner who were both important critics and steadfast supporters of my work. v Table of Contents Title Page…………………………………………………………………………………………..i Acceptance Page…………………………………………………………………………………..ii Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………...iii Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………..v Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………………………vi Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………. 1 The New Black Poetry: Naomi Long Madgett, “Newblack,” and the Search for Black Aesthetic(s) ……………………………………………………………………………….8 Singing a Dual Song: The Legacy of Phillis Wheatley and Naomi Long Madgett’s Sense of Place Poetry…………………………………………………………………………...……….29 Transcript of Naomi Long Madgett Interview……………………………………………...……49 vi Introduction I was not familiar with Naomi Long Madgett’s work before I began my graduate studies at the University of Kansas. Despite the fact that Madgett has been anthologized frequently,1 there is an almost complete dearth of critical work on Madgett’s poetry This need for a critical evaluation of her work was the driving motivation behind the creation of this portfolio thesis. My undergraduate thesis focused on Detroit historically, combining my interest in urban history with creative work. When I was given the opportunity to interview the Detroit Poet Laureate while I was working with the Project on the History of Black Writing, a research unit at the University of Kansas focused on recovering the work of understudied Black writers, I was immediately interested. As I prepared for the interview in the summer of 2017, my correspondence via e-mail with Madgett proved her meticulous and a true documentarian of her own work and others’. What I thought initially would be a short project composed of the interview and a 10-minute documentary film has now grown into my master’s thesis. Because Madgett’s own poetry is lesser-known than her role as editor of Lotus Press or her long career as an educator at both the high school and university levels, my goal was to create at least one critical piece on her poetry; however, her work, the interview, and the video inspired not one but two critical articles. The first article is about “Newblack,” a poem that addresses Madgett’s positionality within and anticipates later criticisms of the Black Arts Movement. My second article examines her narrative poem about Phillis Wheatley’s life “Phillis,” demonstrating Madgett’s engagement with Womanist writings of the late 1970s and placing Madgett amongst a literary legacy of Black women writers. In addition to these components is a roughly twelve-minute video that provides an introduction to Madgett’s life and work and a transcription of the aforementioned interview with Madgett at her home in July 2017. 1 Madgett’s publication history is extensive. Her volumes of poetry include Songs to a Phantom Nightingale (1941), One and the Many (1956), Star by Star (1970), Pink Ladies in the Afternoon (1972), Exits and Entrances (1978), Phantom Nightingale: Juvenilia (1981), Octavia and Other Poems (1988), Remembrances of Spring: Collected Early Poems (1993), Octavia: Guthrie and Beyond (2002), and Connected Islands (2004). Madgett has also published an autobiography, Pilgrim Journey (2006), and has edited the Lotus Press poetry anthologies Milestone Sampler: Fifteenth Anniversary Anthology (1988) and Adam of Ifé: Black Women in Praise of Black Men (1992) as well as authored the textbook A Student’s Guide to Creative Writing (1980). Madgett’s work—her creative work as well as her careers as an educator and editor—challenges almost every critical interpretation or pronouncement of what Black poetry should or should not be; through her poetry, her understanding of Black identity is constantly reimagined. Born in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1923, Madgett’s father, Rev. Dr. Clarence Marcellus Long, and mother, Maude Hilton Long, moved the family to Orange, New Jersey, when Madgett was just eighteen months old. Her father was a well-known minister while her mother, a former teacher, organized events for their church and maintained the household. It was in East Orange that Madgett published her first poem in the Orange Daily Courier when she was thirteen years old. When her father’s job again moved them to St. Louis, Missouri, Madgett attended the historic Sumner High School where she thrived as a student and writer. It was in St. Louis shortly before she graduated high school that she published her first book of poetry, Songs to a Phantom Nightingale (1941). After completing her undergraduate degree in English from Virginia State College (now University), Madgett began a graduate degree program at New York University but eventually withdrew and relocated to Detroit, Michigan, with her fiancé in 1946.2 2 Her move to Detroit made the city the eventual locus of her careers as an educator, editor, and writer. Madgett divorced her first husband shortly after having her first and only child, Jill, in 1947. In 1954, Madgett remarried, and in 1955 she completed her Master of Arts in English Education at Wayne University (now Wayne State). Following her graduation, Madgett began teaching in Detroit Public Schools and taught both the first African American poetry class and creative

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