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

Daily Archives

3 Articles

Eroticism as Poetic Introspection

by Eliana 1 Comment

In Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power, Audre Lorde speaks to the importance of autonomy and self-ownership of black female bodies — to be a source of pleasure and introspection “self-affirming in the face of a racist, patriarchal, and anti-erotic society” (Lorde, 59). Lorde writes, “The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings” (Lorde, 54). Lorde is discussing something deeply internal, which goes against the common placement of eroticism exclusively in the realm of the external or physical. To both Lorde and Shange, sense of self is paramount, speaking to the inherent bond between poetry and eroticism.

On page 55, Lorde writes, “women so empowered are dangerous.” In Nappy Edges, Shange too puts sexual expression in conversation with danger, but does so to relay an entirely different message. Shange brings out the apparent irony in Lorde’s statement through examples of men using eroticism to put women in positions of physical danger. These instances of danger present through Nappy Edges’ detailed scenes of sexual violence are physical, and yet they are far from erotic.

Shange’s decision to define herself as a poet (rather than a playwright) is powerful in that it establishes ownership of her narrative — she is not writing to put on a performance or to wear a costume of another, she instead writes her own poetic, deeply introspective, narrative. “Some men are poets. They find wonderment & joy in themselves & give it to me. I snatch it up quick & gloat. Some men are poets” (Shange, 20). Shange then closes her piece reaffirming her stance as the poet she is by noting that she will keep writing poems ten years from now and beyond; she will continue to affirm her own selfhood and that of other black women finding their voices and owning their narratives, as this introspection of poetry and eroticism is a luxury not afforded to many women, especially not women of color. Thus, For Shange, poetry is something erotic in the way Lorde uses the word — it’s a source of power through raw recognition of internal consciousness and internal desires.

manifestations of lorde’s erotic within Nappy Edges

by Johnson 1 Comment

“the erotic offers a well of replenishing and provocative force to the woman who does not fear its revelation, nor succumb to the belief that the sensation is enough” (Lorde, 54)

“When I speak of the erotic, then, I speak of it as an assertion of the lifeforce of women; of that creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of which we are now reclaiming in our language, or history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives”(Lorde, 55).

“Our erotic knowledge empowers us, becomes a lens through which we scrutinize all aspects of our existence, forcing us to evaluation those aspects honestly in terms of their relative meaning within our lives” (Lorde, 57)

 

What makes Audre Lorde’s text, “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power” such a compelling text for me every time I read it, is her capacity to isolate the concept of “the erotic” found within all of us and clearly break down its power and its uses. Every time I read this text, I can single handedly point out manifestations of the erotic within my life, and ways that my surroundings confuse the erotic for what she refers to as “the pornographic” (Lorde, 54) and perpetuates it daily. 

In my reading selections of Shange’s Nappy Edges, her acute knowledge and acceptance of the erotic within her work shines throughout the piece. A collection of poetry and prose poetry, I find Shange in assessing and communicating the erotic often makes a cleverly biting attack to that which doesn’t serve us—the pornographic. Specifically looking at the poem, “wow… yr just like a man!”, Shange chronicles the experiences of a female poet in a male dominated poetry space, who was initially revered by male poets because of her abstraction from “female” things in her work, until one day she exclaims, “i’ve decided to wear my ovaries on my sleeve/ raise my poems on my milk/ & count my days by the flow of my mensis” (Shange, 16). What makes this moment such a wonderful example of a woman leaning into the erotic is not really rooted in its clearly feminine references, it’s instead to me in her choice of looking within herself and rooting her medium of expression within what moves her. That is powerful. And it is just that practice in speaking to what moves her, that Shange employs within all of her works but particularly Nappy Edges. For some reason, I felt the most connected to Shange as a young woman within this reading of her selections. I saw and felt her throughout all of her poems, and I feel that connection is rooted in her level of comfort with expressing the erotic in her poems. 

What I find most wonderful about the connection between Lorde and Shange’s understanding of “the erotic” is their shared experience and understanding of the intimate nature poetry and the erotic. Lorde finds little difference between “writing a good poem and moving into the sunlight against the body of a woman [she] loves” (58), and Shange believes that “a poem shd fill you up with something…a poem shd happen to you like cold water or a kiss” (24). It is in that understanding of the erotic that makes their work so poignant and timeless. 

 

Taylor Post #3

by Thompson 2 Comments

“The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives” (Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider 36)  

A through line I would like to bring forward in this post that I found salient in all three of our readings is this concept of consciousness raising as well as the very function of art and poetry as means through which to facilitate a generative and essential fullness in our lives–which is perhaps a facet of liberation itself. In Lisa Gail Collins rehearsal of the Black Arts Movement and the Feminist Art Movement, Lisa meditates on the importance of consciousness raising as a means for crafting ones imaginary for liberation and for learning how to self define oneself and be more responsible about the ways one moves through the world. I read this as an effort to deliberately and “responsibly” shed light on the affective map of ones life and see the ways in which it overlaps, clashes, and exists in space and with others. 

In Nappy Edges, Shange writes that “we ourselves suffer form a frightening lack of clarity abt who we are. my work attempts to ferret out what i  know and touch in a woman’s body” (21). Here I read that she values the ability to self reflect and self reflect with clarity and quality about the way that we move through space. Shange goes on to articulate that poems are “essential to our existence” and moreover, when ruminating on ‘what poetry should do’ she writes that “poems should fill you with something” (24). 

Audre Lorde in “Poetry is Not a Luxury” of course argues that poetry is not a luxury. Instead she argues that it is a “revelatory distillation of thought” which brings forth ideas that are ‘felt but not yet birthed fully’. In its revelatory nature, it functions as a “quality light” which allows us to better understand ourselves and the world through teaching us to listen and read for what affects us. What moves us, what makes us feel full and feel fully (in a world where we were “not meant to survive, not as humans” and how to do we facilitate that fullness as ritual?

Poetry.

These readings intersected at a critical juncture of affect, the erotic (Lorde) and self-consciousness—three things that the academy within which we function does not value. As Lorde urges us to learn to respect what affects us, respect our feelings and that which does not yet have language and furthermore, demand more of our institution of learning I begin asking myself more and more how I can turn to poetry and art making as a medium for articulating certain facets of liberation and liberatory praxis how I can facilitate art as a medium for connection.