Celebrated poet, Pulitzer nominee

The writer was also the mother of dancer Debbie Allen and actor Phylicia Rashad.

- By CuRIsTIE D’ZURILLA

A FAMILY OF THE ARTS

JOE SCARNICI Getty Images

Actor Phylicia Rashad, from left, jazz musician Andrew Arthur Allen Jr., poet Vivian Ayers Allen and performer Debbie Allen in May 2018. The matriarch celebrated her 102nd birthday just a few weeks before her death.

Vivian Ayers Allen, a Pulitzer-nominated poet who foreshadowed the country’s journeys into space and was mother to Debbie Allen and Phylicia Rashad, has died, the family announced on Allen’s social media. She was 102.

“Mommie you have transformed into that cosmic bird Hawk that lives and breathes Freedom,” said the message, posted Wednesday. “We will follow your trail of golden dust and continue to climb higher. We promise'to be true... be beautiful ...be Free.""

It was signed with much love — literally five “loves” and dozens of red hearts — by “Norman, Debbie, Lish, Tex, Hugh, Vivi, Thump, Condola, Billy, Oliver, Gel, Tracey, Carmen, Shiloh, Aviah, Eillie, Gia, and all the Turks in our family.” A carousel's worth of family photos was shared, set to Stevie Wonder’s song “Golden Lady.”

The family celebrated Ayers’ 102nd birthday just over three weeks ago, at the endof July. The festivities, attended by four generations of family, included ajazzconcert put together by Andrew “Tex” Allen Jr., a jazz musician and the eldest of Ayers’ four children with dentist Andrew Allen. Ayers and Allen, who died in 1984, got divorced in 1954 after nine years of marriage that also yielded children Debbie, Hugh and Phylicia. All but Hugh would go into the performing arts.

Debbie Allen, 75, spoke about her mother in 2018 at an event honoring the “Grey's Anatomy” star and her sister, Rashad, 77.