Naomi Long Madgett
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Naomi Long Madgett (born July 5, 1923) is an African American poet, born Naomi Cornelia Long in Norfolk, Virginia. Madgett was a teacher and an award winning poet, she is also the senoior editor of Lotus Press, which is a publisher of poetry books by black poets.
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[edit] Life and work
Madgett was the daughter of a Baptist minister, and spent her childhood in East Orange, New Jersey, and began writing at an early age. While living in New Jersey, Madgett went to an integrated school where she faced racism.[1]
In 1937, her family moved to St. Louis, where she was encouraged to write while attending high school. Madgett read a wide range of content, from both white and black writers, from Aesop's fables and Robert T. Kerlin's anthology Negro Poets and Their Poems to Romantic and Victorian English poets such as John Keats, William Wordsworth, and Alfred Tennyson.[1]
At age 17 Naomi published her first book of poetry "Songs to a Phantom Nightingale, a few days after graduating from high school.[1]
Madgett attended Virginia State College (now Virginia State University), and graduated in 1945 with a bachelor of arts degree.[1]
Madgett married and moved to Detroit, where she worked for the Michigan Chronicle and gave birth to a daughter, Jill in 1947.[1] While living in Detroit, Madgett became a teacher in the Detroit public school system. Her poem "Midway," from her book of poetry "One and the Many," attracted wide attention as it portrayed black people struggles, and victories, in a time when racism was prevalent in the United States.
In the 1960's, Madgett taught the first black literary course in the Detroit public school system. In 1968, she became a teacher in creative writing and black literature at Eastern Michigan University. Madgett taught at Eastern Michigan until her retirement in 1984.[1]
[edit] Awards
- Octavia and Other Poems (1988) which was national co-winner of the College Language Association Creative Achievement Award.
- Long Poetry Foundation offered its first annual Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award for excellence in a manuscript by an African American poet.
[edit] Publications
- Pink Ladies in the Afternoon (1972, 1990)
- Octavia and Other Poems (1988)
- Phantom Nightingale: Juvenilia (1981)
- Exits and Entrances (1978)
- Midway (1956)
