My top five quotes from Shange’s works
5) From Lost in Language and Sound
“now that i am writing abt my own work/ I am finally finding some use for the appraisals of strangers. One new york critic had accused me of being too self-conscious of being a writer/ the other from the midwest had asserted that I waz so involved with the deconstruction of the English language/ that my writing approached verbal gymnastics like unto a reverse minstrel show.”
I found this statement very entertaining yet curious. She admitted during one of our lunchtime visits, it was supposed to be an insult. Verbal gymnastics like undo a reverse minstrel show. What was he saying? Was it difficult? Did he find the writing distracting? Or was the work delightful? I admire the audacity Ms. Shange demonstrates here. She does not need the approval of strangers, theatre critics and others who come in contact wither work. She is different; she is an enigma, she de/constructs the English language with her lower case writing, thought provoking dialogue and slashes… on purpose. She breaks all the rules and is proud to do so.
#4 from Ellington was not a Street
our house was filled with all kinda folks
our windows were not cement or steel
our doors opened like our daddy’s arms
held us safe & loved
children growing in the company of men
old southern men & young slick ones
sonny til was not a boy
the clovers no rag-tag orphans
our crooners/we belonged to a whole world
nkrumah was no foreigner
virgil akins was not the only fighter
This poem reminds me of being an onlooker during an evening of luminaries during the Harlem Renaissance. In the book Ellington was not a Street, its told from the perspective of a young precocious girl, listening and learning. The doors of her home were always open for visitors, and the home sounded like a place where people of color could frequent safely. Ntozake shared with me that her father actually knew these luminaries. You see, they would stay at her family home because they could not check into hotels. Her father Dr. Paul T. Williams was the ring doctor for boxer Virgil Akins, he knew Duke Ellington because he loved music, he knew Sonny Til who was the lead singer for the Orioles , and her father attended Lincoln University with Ghana Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah. Now, isn’t that a global who’s who for the young Ntozake to find sitting at her dinner table. These are memories she holds close to her heart and have molded and shaped her into the woman we admire today.
#3 from loosening strings or give me an ‘A’
“yes/I listened to country joe and the fish/
yes/I howled with steppenwolf/
yes/fleetwood mac was my epiphany/
& creedance clearwater revival
swept me neath the waters/
hendrix my national anthem/always
yes blind lemon Jefferson & b.b. huddle
by my stage door/yes chuck berry lives next to me/
yes
eric clapton made me wanna have a child named layla/
yes
I selected this section of the poem because it allowed me to look at yet another side of this woman I know as Zake. For me that represents that high energy rock and roll side of Ntozake, and picture her during her young adult days. This young wordsmith who was forging words into poetry, forging words into plays, was looking around society, living in her world, and making her observations her muse. During those days I can image this quick talking, quick moving , pretty young woman, who hung out in coffee shops and wrote, hung out at rock concerts and wrote, and hung out at the Public Theatre and wrote.
#2 from Liliane
“But your girls have to realize the freedom you wage your most serious battle for is your very own mind. No white man on this earth has the power or the right for that matter to control a single inch of your brain. Your minds, girls are the first battlefields for freedom. You understand me.”
These were the words from S. Bliss Lincoln the mother of Liliane’s. She and her best friend Roxie were in best friend from Biloxi Mississippi. The girls and their families were hosting a Legal Defense Fund party/fundraiser. These type groups were prominent in the deep South during the 1960’s long before the days of political Super Pacs. Just as the fundraiser got into full swing, the party goers were paid an unexpected visit from the Klu Klux Klan.
#1-from For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow is Enuf
“I fell into numbness
Till the only tree I cd see
Took me up in her branches
Held ,e in the breeze
Made me dawn dew
The chill at daybreak
The sun wrapped me up swinging rose light everywhere
The sky laid over me like a million men
I waz cold/I was burin up/ a child
& endlessly weaving garments from the moon
With my tears
I found God in myself and I loved her. I loved her fiercely”
For many years I had a distant relationship with God. As I grew up, I was force fed a steady diet of Christianity, white Jesus and how everything I said, watched and thought would eventually send me to Hell. I took what would be called today verbal and physical abuse because my parents were firm believers in that Bible passage “spare the rod, spoil the child.” I remember one day in church a girl, who happened to be about 6 years older than me, was made to apologize to the church because she was an unwed mother. The boy who impregnated her was nowhere to be seen, but she was publically humiliated. I was only 10 years old, but even then I knew there has to be more to God than this.
About 8 years ago I found a spiritual home (Unity Churches) where all judgment about life is suspended, and all are welcomed with open arms. As I attended the leadership classes and the membership classes I finally joined the church. It was then experienced what this poem speaks of and I realized that I had found what I had been looking for so diligently for my entire life…. God in myself.
