Nanina Alba
Nanina Alba, born Nannie Williemenia Champney in 1915 in Montgomery, Alabama, was an influential African American poet and educator. Raised in a religious household, she developed a passion for literature early on, publishing her first poem at the age of eleven. After completing her education, including a bachelor's degree from Knoxville College and a master's degree from Alabama State College, Alba embarked on a teaching career that spanned several institutions, where she also contributed to creative writing initiatives.
Her poetry, often infused with musical elements and inspired by figures like Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen, celebrated African American culture and addressed social issues. Alba's notable works include "The Parchments: A Book of Verse," published in 1962, which reflects her influences and experiences, and its sequel, "The Parchments II: A Book of Verse," released in 1967. Throughout her life, she engaged politically, advocating for civil rights, which informed her writing. Alba's legacy endures through her contributions to literature and education until her passing from cancer in 1968.
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Nanina Alba
Poet
- Born: November 21, 1915
- Birthplace: Montgomery, Alabama
- Died: June 24, 1968
- Place of death:
Biography
Nanina Alba was born Nannie Williemenia Champney in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1915. Her father, I. C. Champney, a Presbyterian minister, saw to it that she was thoroughly familiar with religious doctrine, and her mother instilled in her a love of beauty. At an early age, Alba began reading American and European writers, especially poets, and published her first poem, “My Muvver’s Pies,” was she was only eleven. After receiving her early education at the Haines Institute in Augusta, Georgia, she attended Knoxville College, where she received her bachelor’s degree in 1935. She met Reuben Andress Alba, her future husband, at Alcorn State College, where she got her first teaching job, and the couple wed in 1937. The couple had two daughters, Panchita and Andrea.
Alba commuted to Alabama State College, where she received her M.A. in education in 1955. Her thesis on listening was the first thesis on that subject to be written in Alabama. While at Alabama State, she also cofounded Omnibus: A Journal of Creative Writing. In addition to teaching in the Alabama school system and at Alcorn, Alabama State, and Tuskegee Institute, she took summer graduate courses at Indiana University.
After publishing some of her poems in journals and newspapers, including Phylon, Crisis, and the Montgomery Advertiser, she published her first book of verse in 1962. The Parchments: A Book of Verse, with its three dedications, indicates the formative influences in her life: her father and mother and the Reverend William Lloyd Imes, whose sermon comparing the creative work of Christ to the parchments of St. Paul was the source of the book’s title. Many of the collection’s poems are tied to music, one of Alba’s passions; she also taught piano in the Alabama public schools in addition to her English classes. Despite her knowledge of standard English, she used black dialect in her poems, and she wrote articles about African American dialect. She was influenced by Langston Hughes, who had encouraged her writing and with whom she corresponded; “Largesse Unlimited,” one of the poems in The Parchments, praises Hughes’s versatility and universality. Alba’s poems also celebrated other people who helped her and national literary figures, including writer Countee Cullen, another influence on her work. Other poems are about the achievements of George Washington Carver and Ralph Bunche.
Her participation in the boycott of the Montgomery, Alabama, bus system led her to become more political and to write poetry encouraging blacks to strive to succeed. In “Be Daedalus,” her most celebrated poem, she uses mythology to depict African Americans’ struggles to cope with their everyday lives. “So Quaint,” one of her Miss Lucy stories, presents the situation of a white Southern woman who supports the Civil Rights movement.
A second collection of poems, The Parchments II: A Book of Verse, was published in 1967. She collaborated with her daughter Panchita Alba Crawford, who supplied the illustrations for the collection. The second collection is global in scope, alludes to the works of many other writers, expresses her religious views, and breaks from her poetic practice in introducing haiku and free verse. Alba died of cancer on June 24, 1968.