Header Image - The Worlds of Ntozake Shange
The Worlds of Ntozake ShangeAND DIGITAL STORYTELLING

Katie Lee

Haveline in Conversation with Shange and Lorde

by Katie Lee 2 Comments

The Havelin reading reminded me of our discussions from last week on for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf and also Audre Lorde’s scholarship on anger in “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism”. Havelin’s concept of the revolutionary love-praxis involves both mutual affection and the commitment to revolutionary ethics, particularly through fostering understanding between women. Havelin expands upon the traditional conception of love as tenderness by also stating that the use and expression of love is a measure of revolutionary thought and action. This reminds me of for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf because the choreopoem portrays communal emotional vulnerability, followed by loving acceptance. The women each reveal their story of survival and, in doing so, warmly accept each other. This feeling comes organically to them, and would fall under Havelin’s category of everyday feeling. I think that Havelin would argue that their acts are revolutionary, in that it creates a space wherein the experiences of women of color are heard and taken to heart, in opposition to the current white, patriarchal hegemony.

This also reminded me of Lorde’s work because she similarly describes a natural feeling as an act of revolution, except she identifies anger. Both Havelin and Lorde appreciate the power of the everyday. They both assert that refusing to dismiss and legitimizing these everyday feelings pushes up against the hegemonic belief that women should suppress their irrational, over-abundant emotions.

For my piece of media, I chose Kerry James Marshall’s “School of Beauty, School of Culture”, an acrylic and glitter work from 2013. Marshall harnesses the power of the everyday, that being a hair salon, to make assert of black culture as a legitimate form of culture, now taking its space in art institutions (like the Whitney, where this was shown). He also portrays black women communing with each other through care and closeness.

Here’s a link to a better photo: https://artsbma.org/may-2013-spotlight/sony-dsc/

Lady in Orange on Healing

by Katie Lee 1 Comment

One of the parts of for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf that struck me most was the Lady in Orange’s poem describing her relationship with a man who continually cheats on her with his ex-lover. She vividly describes her pain, stating “you put my heart in the bottom of/ yr shoe”, describing the way this man has abused and disrespected her and their relationship. Shange complicates the narrative of the “woman scorned” in showing that Lady in Orange vacillates between caring for herself and describing her pain. On one hand, she is able to find her own joy in dancing, for example. She states that she does not “leave bitterness in somebody else’s cup”, including the “other woman” and eventually states that she has left “sorrow on the curb” for herself. Yet, at the same time, she seems to redirect the injury the “woman scorned” supposedly takes out on others onto herself, stating “I have died in a real way”, and is not satisfied by her new lover. Shange beautifully shows that healing is not a unidirectional process in any way. Healing requires an examination and acceptance of pain in addition to the strength to look past it, and the joy and sorrow of moving on are wrapped up in each other.

I truly have not seen a work that captures the many dimensions of healing as well as Shange, but I was reminded of Beyoncé’s “Pray You Catch Me”. In this song, Beyoncé focuses more on her attachment to her lover than in Shange’s work. However, the song does capture how her pain is rooted in a deep love, which continues her hope that he can and will return her prayers. This mirrors Shange’s description of the willingness to hold on to love and joy through suffering.

 

Nappy Edges & Identity

by Katie Lee 0 Comments

One of the themes Shange addresses in nappy edges is exercising her own narrative voice as a black woman. The first chapter of her collection is “things i wd say”. I interpreted Shange’s use of “wd say” as opposed to “am saying” or simply” “things I say” as her stating that these are things she would say given the opportunity and space that is kept from her. In putting the title in lowercase, Shange also draws attention to how her language as a writer has been diminished, and she attributes this to the development of a singular identity of black artists. In the formation of a singular narrative, the voices of individuals have been drowned out. A monolithic “language”, as stated in Juan Goytisolo’s quote, has homogenized individual experience and must be fought against if black women are to be heard. She goes on to describe the ways in which the works of black artists, musicians, poets, and writers have been inappropriately “boxed in” and flattened. She argues that until identities amongst artists are made distinct, “our spaces, language & therefore craft will not be nurtured consciously”. Therefore, black artists and their identities must be made distinct in order for their voices, their own voices, to be known and grown.

The media included above is Toyin Odutola’s  (Barnard’s resident artist!) “uncertain, yet reserved”. She says of her work “where some may see flat, static narratives, I see a spectrum of tonal gradations and realities”. Toyin’s work, similar to Shange’s, pushes against a singular narrative. Her entire quote is below.

“skin as geography is the terrain I expand by emphasizing the specificity of blackness, where an individual’s subjectivity, various realities and experiences can literally be drawn onto the diverse topography of the epidermis. from there, the possibilities of portraying a fully-fledged person are endless.” -Toyin Ojin Odutola