What It Means to Be Human: Celebrating Mari Evans and Etheridge Knight

Event Details

What It Means to Be Human honors the legacies of Mari Evans and Etheridge Knight: poets who grew to international prominence while maintaining ties to Indianapolis. The festival will gather local artists and scholars to put the writers’ contributions to literature and the community into perspective. Events will include a scholar’s panel, generative poetry workshops, and a poetry reading. All events will be free to the public with registration through Eventbrite required for attendance. Complimentary drinks and snacks will be served.

Schedule:

3:00 p.m. Panel discussion

4:00 p.m. Writing workshop: Look On Me & Be Renewed: poems in spirit of Mari Evans

5:00 p.m. Writing workshop: Indiana Haiku: poems in the spirit of Etheridge Knight

6:00 Poetry readings with DJ ESide E V V and pizza

Festival Events

Panel:

Local scholars and relatives of Evans and Knight gather to discuss the impact of the poets’ leadership in Indianapolis and their enduring place in contemporary literature.

Panelists:

Hanako Gavia, Project Manager of the Etheridge Knight Partnership Initiative, Assistant Director of the Center for Citizenship and Community at Butler University, and great niece of Etheridge Knight.

Dr. Terri R. Jett, Professor of Political Science, Faculty Director of the Hub for Black Affairs and Community Engagement, Butler University.

Norman Minnick, Editor of The Lost Etheridge, a new collection featuring unpublished and uncollected works by Etheridge Knight, senior associate faculty at IUPUI.

Tabitha Barbour, creative entrepreneur and author of “The Art of Peace: Mari Evans’ Legacy of Peaceful & Ethical Engagement”

Moderator: Dr. Lasana Kazembe, Assistant Professor, IUPUI School of Education (Dept. of Urban Teacher Education).

Writing workshops:

Look On Me & Be Renewed: poems in spirit of Mari Evans

Inspired by Evans’ famous poem “I Am A Black Woman,” this generative poetry workshop will ask attendees to explore the use of creative language and expressive form to make poetry’s liberating power their own. 

Workshop Facilitator: Chantel Massey

Chantel Massey (she/her) is a poet, author, teaching artist, educator, and anime lover based in Indiana. Massey has received fellowship and retreat invites from Open Mouth Poetry, Hurston/Wright Foundation, and The Watering Hole. She is a Best of Net Award nominee and 2020 Indiana Eugene and Marilyn Glick Author Awards Emerging Author finalist for her first collection of poetry, Bursting At The Seams (VK Press, 2018).  Massey founded the poetry organization, UnLearn Arts , serving to inspire underrepresented writers through a Black classic and contemporary arts-centered curriculum. 

Indiana Haiku: poems in the spirit of Etheridge Knight

Inspired by Knight’s famous haiku series, this generative poetry workshop will challenge attendees to put their own spin on the 17th century Japanese form Knight famously transformed with images of the Hoosier state.

Workshop Facilitator: Mitchell L. H. Douglas

Mitchell L. H. Douglas is the author of dying in the scarecrow’s arms, \blak\ \al-fə bet\, winner of the Persea Books Lexi Rudnitsky/Editor’s Choice Award, and Cooling Board: A Long-Playing Poem, an NAACP Image Award and Hurston/Wright Legacy Award nominee. His poetry has appeared in Quarterly West, The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, and The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop among others. He is a 2021 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, a Cave Canem alum, and Associate Professor of English at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis (IUPUI).  

Evening Reading:

Continuum: The Next Movement

Poets Manon Voice, Eric Saunders, Januarie York and Mat Davis headline a reading of Indianapolis poets inspired by the legacy of Evans and Knight.

Indiana Humanities will make reasonable modifications to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to enjoy our programs. If you need an accommodation, please email Megan Telligman at mtelligman@indianahumanities.org.