She got her start in the literary circuit as a young woman studying under Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks in the South Side of Chicago.
Rodgers first became involved in writing during that period while attending Writers Workshops by the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC), of which she was an active member from 1967 to 1971.
In 2009, Rodgers was inducted into the International Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent at the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing.
[5] Rodgers's poetry is recognizable for its themes, which included identity, religion, and revolution, and her own use of free verse street slang and concern with feminine issues.
She used slang and heartfelt language to write about love, lust, body image, family, religion, and the grace of human kindness.
Haki R. Madhubuti, chair, publisher and fellow founder of Third World Press, told the Chicago Sun-Times that: "She would take no quarter from insults, or downgrading her writing as a woman ...
"[6] So while Rodgers's Songs of a Blackbird includes themes about survival, mother-daughter conflicts, and street life, it also criticizes those who dishonor her use of profanity.
Rodgers says she will stop using profanity but continues using the "menacing word" at least 11 times throughout the poem, blatantly making jabs at men and their ideas of how a woman should speak and behave.
Other volumes of work such as The Heart as Ever Green (1978) and How I Got Ovah (1975) also reflect on feminine issues such as female identity, women's roles in society, and the relationships between mothers and daughters.
Rodgers carries the reader through experiences of crossing rivers while "eyelash deep," picturing the engulfing of ideas and socially accepted expectations of her as a black woman.
At the end of the poem, she has found secret strength through staying afloat: though i shivered was wet with cold and wanted to sink down and float as water, yea-- i can tell you.
Estella M. Sales concludes that, in this poem, Rodgers "comes to recognize ... her own inner voice, her ancestral rootedness, her Christian faith, and her parental support".
her aches and trials, the tribulations of her heart Here Rodgers points once again to the underlying foundation to which African Americans had been clinging even before the Black Arts Movement.
[citation needed] According to poet Lorenzo Thomas, Carolyn Rodgers proposed new prosodic categories specific to black poetry.
Thomas points out that this kind of essay (or manifesto) outlining a vision statement to spur militant and creative inquiry (but most particularly "Black Poetry – Where It's At") was widely disseminated and discussed among poets of that time.
[11] Thomas then goes on to point out that: "Her [Rodgers's] ideas were based on what Jerry W. Ward, Jr., has called "culturally anchored Speech Acts and Reader/Hearer Response."
[12] Despite recognition for her efforts in the Black Arts Movement, Rodgers' unconventional use of language, especially for a woman, was frowned upon by some of her readers, most notably men.