Lives of Consequence
Evelyn Tooley Hunt '26
Innovative Poet
Stubbornly adding lines to poems her grandmother read to her, Hunt was always a poet who relied as much on the craftsmanship of a poem as her own inspiration. Her commitment to a poem's form drove her to extensively study the Japanese haiku form before deviating from this established form, and thus creating the American style of haiku.
Published in more than 40 anthologies and high school textbooks, her most well known and influential poem, "Taught Me Purple," deals with a child's view of poverty, pride and hope. It was the inspiration for the book The Color Purple by Alice Walker, which was later made into a 1985 movie directed by Steven Spielberg starring Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg and Danny Glover. The movie garnered 11 Academy Award nominations. The novel was also adapted into a musical in 2005 and a radio broadcast in 2008.
"My Mother Taught Me Purple"
My mother taught me purple
Although she never wore it.
Wash-gray was her circle,
The tenement her orbit.
My mother taught me golden
And held me up to see it,
Above the broken molding,
Beyond the filthy street.
My mother reached for beauty
And for its lack she died,
Who knew so much of duty
She could not teach me pride.
One of Hunt's editors, prompted by the success of "Taught Me Purple" in both the U.S. and Canada, sent some of her poems to three well-known haiku authorities for evaluation. The experts were unimpressed with her work and severely criticized it. Hunt suspected gender and nationality may have played a part, so she began publishing her haikus under the pseudonym "Tao-Li." As "Tao-Li," Hunt won a number of international prizes. Having gathered a significant following, Hunt wrote an article unveiling her pseudonym. Some editors were furious with the subterfuge but still others were amused - especially the women. The man who initially criticized Hunt's work even requested permission to use some as good examples of the haiku form.
After her great success with "Taught Me Purple" and "Tao-Li," Hunt continued to write haiku under her pen name, illustrating as well as authoring two Tao-Li books - "The Haiku of Tao" and "Dancer in the Wind."
The author of five poetry collections, Hunt was the recipient of the Florida Pen Woman of the Year Award and the 1962 recipient of the Sydney Lanier Memorial Award in American Poetry.
Elected to Phi Beta Kappa, Hunt graduated with a B.A. from William Smith College. During her time at the Colleges, she was editor of the literary magazine.
Hunt passed away on January 25, 1997.