Many of the newer poetry books I’ve been reading heavily interact with social media and the news. Some poets ask us to run away from the media world and attempt to engage with the physical page. Some try and fail to outrun publicized disasters in the news and media. In Cathrine Barnett’s poem, “Another Divine Comedy,” she writes:
Thomas Allen Harris
TW: sexual assault
There is a poem in Nappy Edges that particularly haunted me. This poem was “with no immediate cause” (pg.114). In the poem, Shange reveals her inner torment with the ways in which women must engage casually every day with men despite the horrors they commit against them:
every 3 minutes a woman is beaten
every 5 minutes a
woman is raped/ every ten minutes
a lil girl is molested
yet i rode the subway today
i sat next to an old man who
may have beaten his old wife
In this poem, Shange points out that the men who create these statistics are not far away and hidden, living in bushes and allys. They are riding the subway, serving you food, holding the door open for you. They aren’t “hiding” in plain sight. They are simply living. We must smile at them and say good morning when we enter the office. We must have them lecture us in classrooms. The frequency of the statistic proves they are everywhere. This is not to make us fearful that these things could happen us (although they can), but rather in order to be social and “civilized” as women, we must tolerate these atrocities and these evil men, treating them with courtesy and quietness.
However, it was not this poem alone that horrified me, but also how it related to the poem that followed. The poem is followed by “the suspect is black & in his early 20’s”, where Shange defends “ours sons” from the way the media seeks to demonize them for their blackness, assigning guilt to any black man who fits the description of “black and in his 20’s”. A strange effect was created by showing men as both an inherently guilty being that Shange feared, to a being deserving of the sympathy and care society would not afford him.
This is the tragedy, I think, of black women in their relationship with black men. We are taught a duty and feel a desire to protect, love, and defend the very individuals who terrorize us. These are the same men from the first poem, who beat, rape, and molest us. We are called to protect them from the violence that they endure from white society, but who protects us from them?
The juxtaposition of the two pieces also made me think about how there isn’t a man I’ve loved who hasn’t hurt a woman, whether it be physically or emotionally. I know Shange focuses on the physical harm men commit, but their emotional violence is just as prevalent and constant. And how at the end of the day, I still am called to be their sister, their daughter, their partner. I have to hug them when they come hug, kiss them on the cheek in the same casual and quiet way. Are we just in love with the masks they show us, the actions they commit that they know will reward them, the fantasies of them we have created in our minds? No man is innocent, yet we are called to also defend them and love them.
I attended the talk in the Diana where Ntozake Shange discussed Black Dance. Her words were sto powerful as she described her experience in dance classes with some of the most renowned dancers during the Black Arts Movement. What stood out to me was Shange’s emphasis on the dancers Blackness and how that was not only an integral part to the movement and choreography but to the significance to the diaspora as well as the continent of Africa in the formation of new movements through these dance instructors and influencers. A point in the conversation that was very enriching was Shange’s description of Ottis Sallid and the way that his movement dispelled the stereotypes of a Black man as being a predator and intimidating. Rather, Ottis was gentle, meek, smart, graceful as a dancer who also interact physically with the female body. I think Black bodies and Black dance is so unique and special; but also so important to the healing process for Black people. As a Caribbean descent American, I am well familiar and take part in dance that feels freeing in the most intimate and physical ways with Black men. From dancehall to afrobeats, movement and the interaction of the Black male and female body. My experience recently going to The Shrine in Harlem felt like an epicenter for healing through the form of Blackness in dance and the intimacy of the Black male body interacting with others. Shange’s remarks were so vivid and captured the importance of revering and survival of Black bodies and Black dance.
I was drawn to Ntozake’s poem With No Immediate Cause when reading her book Nappy Edges because it is relevant to the political climate of our country and it felt true to my experience as a woman. In this poem, Shange narrates her everyday experiences as she interacts with men, noting how she is filled with anguish and fear everytime she interacts with a man. Elaborating on this idea, Shange writes:
“i rode the subway today
& bought a paper from a
man who might
have held his old lady onto
a hot pressing iron/ i dont know” (Nappy Edges).
The first thing I thought of when I read this poem was the sexual assault cases against supreme court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. What stood out to me during the trail and the television interview was his attempt to paint himself as a good man incapable of assaulting a woman. He talked about his virginity throughout high school, his Yale degree, and his Christian faith. He attempted to distance himself from what he believed to be the image of a sexual assaulter. What I believe Shange’s poem does is highlight how all men, regardless of all the things mentioned by Kavanaugh, have the potential to be an abuser.
In the poem, Shange interacts with an old man on the train, a man who sells newspapers, and a man who served her coffee. The fear she feels interacting with these men demonstrates how an abuser can be anyone from subway rider to a supreme court appointee.
Additionally, in the poem, Shange writes about how she is planning to read about the women that were murdered or abused in the newspaper. However, she only finds an announcement portraying women who were abused as seeking revenge against their husbands. This desire to portray women as seeking revenge and being violent or causing harm is all too common. In Kavanaugh’s opening statement to the Senate, he talked about how his trail is a “revenge on behalf of the Clintons.” He portrays his accuser, Dr. Ford, not as a survivor wanting to tell her truth to the world, but as a weapon of revenge.
I loved Shange’s poem because I often feel fear when I interact with men, and I believe that she did a good job of depicting the fear that I, along with other women feel. Additionally, I thought that this poem shed light on the Kavanaugh trial, which is the biggest topic in this news cycle.
I attached the video from Kavanaugh’s trail.
As I think about the title nappy edges it was interesting to me as to think about the physical challenge of nappy edges to conform to one’s hair in away that is contained and socially proper. In a way, Shange draws parallels in the black woman’s experience as a poet and as a women to the dilemma of nappy edges when she writes about the restrictions of womanhood that persist with women because of the societal masculine pressures of conformity and acceptance. Shange explores how traditional gender dynamics can exclude women. Through love and relationships as spaces where women should be able to seek their own pleasure, sexual or in motherhood. For Shange, womanhood can sometimes act as a double edge sword in that sex and love can either torment or uplift women. These selection of poems in nappy edges push back against the way in which black women have been allowed a single, monolithic voice and experience. What I appreciate about this piece is the emphasis of self care and love through sexuality, poetry and femininity.
For my digital piece I selected a spoken word performance by one of my favorite poets in the arts collective Strivers Row. In this performance Alysia talks about the labels, restrictions on her womanhood by men. Her experience discusses how women are expected to behave and in a sense a form of respectability politic for black women that is created by black men. I enjoyed that at the end of the poem Alysia identifies her identity as a poet and as a woman in her existence stripped away from the labels by the men; yet still she faces challenges of self doubt and questioning her self worth. This poem carried many parallels to the themes in nappy edges in a modern and revived ways from the words and poetry of Shange during the 1970s.
I have read Audre Lorde’s “Uses of the Erotic” at most three times, this last time being the first my highlighter glided across the page in fervent agreement. Now I understand what she means by the erotic, “the lifeforce of women; of that creative energy empowered” (55). Although I don’t agree with her association of the erotic with a female identity, I understand how necessary it is for women to access the erotic. All humans possess the power to feel deeply, to revel in that feeling, and to harness the creative energy that is imbued in feeling. Lorde’s description of the erotic as being a creative energy brought to mind the Yoruba concept of ashe, which is the power to create. It is the ability within all beings to manifest.
Lorde states that the erotic functions through joy: it is “that deep and irreplaceable knowledge of my capacity for joy ” which “demand from all of my life that it be lived within the knowledge that such satisfaction is possible” (57). This statement is so powerful and beautiful because it challenges us to aim for maximum sensation/maximum experience. Joy is unfortunately neglected in our society. Little attention is given to seeking joy and fulfillment in our lives. It’s all about survival and getting by. It’s always about security and stability. But what about the joy found in chaos and spontaneity or the chaos found in feeling pure joy? Why don’t we prioritize this feeling above the need to satisfy social expectations of self hate and self neglect?
Lorde connects the erotic to our passions in work saying that often we aren’t fulfilled in our work because we don’t do it out of pleasure. This relates to Shange’s poem “advice” where she writes about her confusion regarding people’s reaction to her being a poet. Poetry isn’t her profession, it’s her passion, her use of the erotic. It’s what gives deep meaning to her life.
Ending on the importance of joy, I’ve included a song by Pharoah Sanders which relate to this need to experience joy.
