POEMS FROM MY TEA GARDEN
"Wisdom is the best of all treasures."
Africana Wisdom traces a professor’s writing through three decades of a learning journey. Evans explores five evergreen lessons gleaned from reading, writing, and teaching. Memories traverse the author’s adventures from the Vegas desert and Florida swampland to the Massachusetts valley and Atlanta’s rolling hills.
Poems pay tribute to lives of historical Black women memoirists, “Mothers of the Vine,” like Idea Keeling, Mary Seacole, Edna Lewis, Maya Angelou, and Wangari Maathai as well as thinkers like Johnnetta Betsch Cole, whose proverbs connect African wisdom traditions to contemporary issues. Ancient proverbs teach the value of wisdom. Queen Makeda, the Queen of Sheba said wisdom is the best of all treasures.
In this haiku memoir, Dr. Stephanie Y. Evans shares five lessons from her tea garden, learned on her search for understanding: BREATHE. TRAVEL. TEACH. RESIST. CREATE.
"MOTHERS OF THE VINE" | Painting by tariq mix
Africana Wisdom
Black women’s ideas
Can help solve global problems
At least, they solved mine
~Stephanie Y. Evans, 2010
WELCOME TO MY BLACK TEA GARDEN
A MIXED METHODS MEMOIR
Africana Wisdom is part of a multi-dimensional memoir project. I bring together 15 different types of sources from my journey, (including maps, photos, publications, and poetry) to share my life story. This method of information gathering enhances the life writing experience by expanding the range of information we use to tell our story. It is also more nuanced, interesting, and fun to create.
Photo Credit: Minta Woods
an ode to learning communities
