nappy edges: the struggle for black womanhood

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.