Life

“Life” appears in Naomi Long Madgett’s 1993 collection of poetry titled Remembrances of Spring: Collected Early Poems, though the exact date of the poem’s composition is unknown. Madgett began writing at an early age, and by her teenage years, Langston Hughes served as her mentor. In addition to writing poetry, Madgett also taught high school and college English. She began her own publishing company, Lotus Press, to accurately represent her work as well as the work of other underrepresented African American writers. Throughout her works, readers can clearly trace influences from the Civil Rights Movement and the Harlem Renaissance. In “Life,” Madgett’s speaker relays the lack of human agency, the fleeting nature of life, and the amorphous definition of the value in life itself. Consisting of a single stanza with six lines, Madgett uses extended metaphor to make the concept of life seem inconsequential and trivial compared to some higher power. Though there is no set rhyme scheme or meter, the use of figurative language through metaphor and allusion elevates the technical quality of Madgett’s poem.

Poet Biography

Madgett was born in 1923, in Norfolk, Virginia. Her father, Reverend Clarence Marcellus Long, was a Baptist minister, and her mother, Maude Selena Hilton, worked as a teacher before getting married and becoming a mother. Though born in Virginia, Madgett grew up in East Orange, New Jersey, and she and her two brothers attended the Ashland Grammar School and Bordentown School. Madgett began writing poetry when she was seven, and when she was 12 years old, she landed her first publication; her poem “My Choice” appeared in the Orange Daily Courier’s youth page.

The Madgett family moved to St. Louis, Missouri in 1937 when Madgett’s father accepted a new position as a pastor in a St. Louis church. At the all-Black high school she attended in St. Louis, Madgett felt accepted and nurtured. Madgett made many friends in high school; when she was 15, she began a friendship with the famous American poet Langston Hughes after attending one of his readings. Hughes would go on to become Madgett’s mentor. At 17 years of age, Madgett published her first collection of poetry at the urging of her father; the collection is titled Songs to a Phantom Nightingale.

After high school graduation, Madgett attended Virginia State University for her undergraduate education and New York University for graduate work. She married for the first time in 1946 to Julian Witherspoon. The couple moved to Detroit where Madgett worked for the Michigan Chronicle and the Michigan Bell as a copywriter. Her next poems were published in 1949 in various publications, including “Refugee” in The Poetry of the Negro, 1746–1949 and several poems in American Literature by Negro Authors.

Madgett’s marriage to Julian Witherspoon ended in divorce. In 1954, she married her second husband, William H. Madgett. William was a postal worker, and while married, Madgett received her master’s degree in education from Wayne State University in Detroit. After receiving her degree in 1955, Madgett taught for over a decade at Northwestern High School; in her curriculum, she included textbooks written by Black authors. Madgett would later also teach English at Eastern Michigan University from 1968–1984.

While working as an educator, Madgett continued to write and publish her own work. Her poetry collections include One and the Many (1956), Star by Star (1965), Pink Ladies in the Afternoon (1972), Exits and Entrances (1978), and Octavia and Other Poems (1988). As an editor, she worked on the collection Adam of Ifé: Black Women in Praise of Black Men (1992). Her poetry appeared in various other publications including the Negro History Bulletin, Negro Digest, Hughes’s anthology New Negro Poets: U.S.A., and Ten: Anthology of Detroit Poets. Throughout the 1960s, Madgett would also consistently meet with other African American writers at Boone House in Detroit. Besides teaching and writing, Madgett created her own press (called Lotus Press) in 1972, where she published Pink Ladies in the Afternoon herself. Lotus Press served as a platform and vehicle for other Black writers and underrepresented voices.

In her later years, Madgett divorced her second husband. She later met Leonard Andrews, a teacher and school principal, who would become her third husband. In 1980, Madgett completed her PhD from Greenwich University, and numerous awards and accolades followed in the remainder of her career. In 2001, Madgett was named Detroit’s poet laureate. A 2011 documentary titled Star by Star: Naomi Long Madgett, Poet & Publisher directed by David Schock documents the life of the writer. A prolific poet, publisher, editor, and teacher, Madgett passed away in 2020.

Poem Text

Madgett, Naomi Long. “Life.” 1993. Remembrances of Spring: Collected Early Poems, Michigan State University Press.

Summary

The speaker opens the poem with a metaphor that equates life with “a toy that swings on a bright gold chain” (Line 1). The speaker draws out this extended metaphor, describing how the toy makes a “[t]icking” (Line 2) sound that initially entertains a curious baby. The ticking sound also likens the “toy” (Line 1) to a pocket watch. The person holding the end of the pocket watch chain is an “old man” (Line 4). He swings the watch until he grows “tired” (Line 5) of the activity and then stops.