Archive Find of the Week: “They Are Safe for Now”

Typed copy of Ntozake Shange’s (Paulette Williams) poem “They Are Safe for Now” published in 1966 in The Phoenix, the literary publication of her high school, Trenton High. 

This piece interested me initially because the poem was typed on a browned sheet of paper and the bottom left corner was significantly ripped off. I noticed the date, 1966, and the authorship, Paulette Williams. I recalled that there weren’t many pieces in the Archive that were taken from this time in Shange’s life, and I also hadn’t seen any using her name assigned at birth.

There is a tiny child playing amidst trash and squalor.

Her play-pen is the cracked, cluttered pavement that

shelters, too,

An old man, his pants infested with lice and dragging

on the

Cement as he wanders thru the maze of oppression.

But the child plays with her doll,

Oblivious to the despair enshrouding her,

Oblivious to the shattered face of the matted-haired

doll.

She is safe for now.

The poem is special because it shows Shange’s development as a poet. Her writing style, as we have become accustomed to it in class, seems to have not fully formed by this date. For example, while she seems to have been experimenting with creating space on the page and throughout the poem, she uses standard capitalization, punctuation, and spelling (for the most part). There are no slashes in the poem.

In terms of content, there is already evidence of the theme of girlhood, and the experiences of girls of color, specifically. She seems to equate being “oblivious” with being “safe” for the girls in each stanza. It is interesting to see Shange’s early conceptions of girlhood and how her conceptions interact with the notion of safety.

This piece both serves as a manifestation and reminder of Shange’s development as a poet over decades. While I will primarily be studying Shange’s work in the 1970s and 1980s, it is important that I understand where her work originates.

If I needed to access this piece again, I could get permission via the Barnard Archives. In terms of metadata, I have access to the Shange Papers Inventory Spreadsheet.