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

The Meaning Behind my Archive Find: Blogpost #7

by Charista 0 Comments

Cup coasters I found in the Shange Archives. I reflected on each word on every coaster and realized their relationship to Shange’s work.

 

I found these cup coasters in the Ntozake Shange Archives. The box I found them in said that they were found in Shange’s home when her belongings were collected. As soon as I saw them, many thoughts ran through my mind. The words on the coasters read: consciousness, nonviolence, homeland, realization, environment, women, the journey, values, fulfillment, obstacles, hope, and freedom. 

Each word is a theme that is shown in a plethora of her works and pieces. Perhaps she used these coasters as her inspiration when she wrote? The coasters were, in fact, found laying around her house. Maybe she used a different coaster for each piece she wrote and tried to work that word/theme into it? 

These coasters make me think about each word and how every word is a significant and powerful theme that is ever-present in Shange’s pieces. The more obvious themes, to me, are the words that are almost self-explanatory: environment, women, the journey, values, fulfillment, obstacles, hope, and freedom. 

For example, let’s look at “consciousness, “realization,” and “homeland.” Consciousness and realization can be interpreted as “awareness” — awareness/realization of one’s self, awareness/realization of one’s body, awareness/realization of one’s surroundings, and awareness/realization of one’s capabilities– something that Shange often explores in pieces like Nappy Edges and for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf.

“Homeland” reminds me of Shange’s appreciation for black culture and tradition. A powerful underlying theme of Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo, and in many of her pieces in Lost in Language in Sound, is the significance of cultural tradition in the lives of contemporary black people. For example, my previous blogpost that talked about how Shange makes it evident that the portrayal and depiction of cultural heritage strongly affects the identity and character development of Sassafras, Cypress, and Indigo, partly because of their mother’s influence. As I continue to reflect on the words on these coasters, I will think of deeper meanings and ways these themes connect to Shange’s life, as well as my life, going forward in the semester.

 

shange’s transnational inclinations in A Daughter’s Geography

by Johnson 0 Comments

“somebody/ anybody

sing a black girl’s song
bring her out
to know herself
to know you
but sing her rhythms
carin/ struggle/ hard times
sing her song of life
she’s been dead so long
closed in silence so long
she doesn’t know the sound
of her own voice” – Lady In Brown 

 

(PAGE 2 of TAMARA LEA SPIRA ZINE)

 

 

“Self-creation and self-representation of the third world women… complicates representations and challenges a third world woman/woman of color binary.” (Enszer & Beins)

 

 

I’ve posited these three quotes together because I find that they effectively represent this incredible desire from and for women of color/third world women to have mediums in which they can be heard, felt, and seen— wherein through representation they can escape for a moment the strictures or biases from label of “third world women/woman of color” and have their personhood recognized. This recognition of our innate personhoods and insistence on drawing lines of connectivity across borders is the world I find Ntozake Shange incredibly dedicated to within all of her works but in specific to A Daughter’s Geography. A collection of poems dedicated to her Daughter Savanna; these poems reach far and wide in terms of subject matter and scope and truly demonstrate Shange’s use of what Enszer and Agatha Beins refers to as “transnational feminist perspective” (24).

Transnationalism by definition is a “scholarly research agenda and social phenomenon grown out of heightened inter connectivity between people and receding economic and social significance of boundaries among nation states.” Enzer and Beins also draws attention to another “primary use of the term” (24) being actually a “synonym for diasporic” (24). In looking at Shange’s history as one rooted in movement, diaspora, and writing—from her parents’ travels and its impacts on her life, to her own personal travels and its impact on her writing— we find the inherent role Transnationalism plays in all of her texts. In specific to A Daughter’s Geography, Shange quite literally maps out for her daughter through poetry various occurrences that took place both in the past and take place in her present that her Daughter will have to come into contact with. 

I am most profoundly struck by these lines in her poem, “New World Coro”:

 

“ salvador & johannesburg/cannot speak

the same language

we’re fight the same old men/ in the new world”

 

“a long time ago/we boarded ships/ locked in 

depths of seas out spirits/kisst the earth

on the atlantic side of nicaragua costa rica

our lips traced the edges of cuba puerto rico 

charleston & savannah/ in haiti 

we embraced &

made children of the new world

but old men spit on us/ shackled our limbs”

 

“for but a minute…

you’ll see us in luanda or the rest of us in chicago”

 

In her inclusion of American cities like “Charleston”, “Savannah”, and “Chicago” alongside nations like “Nicaragua”, “Cuba”, and “Luanda”, Shange not only points to a collective and transnational experience of Colonialism and Anti-Blackness and their effects throughout the globe, but she like Enszer and Biens stated above “complicates representations and challenges a third world woman/woman of color binary”.  She foregrounds that these experiences and their effects are bigger than borders could control, and she provides a space for people all over the world despite their cultural or individual distinctions to feel represented and acknowledge their collective experiences of the very visceral effects of Colonialism. She illuminates that it’s deeper than a “third world” problem. Her intentional use of different languages and various references to cities and people throughout the colonized world—as seen in Feminist Publications like Conditions—throughout A Daughter’s Geography, forces the reader within their own experiences of representation to engage with other cultural experiences and employ a diasporic and transnational thought within their experience of the book and hopefully experience of the world.

1976 and 2019

by Elizabeth 0 Comments

The 70s are an elusive decade to me. I was taught in school to associate it with the elimination of racism. Even at home, a lot of my older relatives focused more on the changes that had been made in their lifetimes, and almost seemed to confine ugliness the past and ignore it in the present.

american son marquee

It is interesting to think about the different shows like “American Son” that have occupied the same space as for colored girls, especially ones that also focus on Black women.

Springer calls attention to the histories of Black feminism that is often left out of history in saying, “[…] The mainstream and black press vilified black women writers, in particular, Wallace and Shange. However, these women are considered pioneers of the contemporary black feminist movement for daring to assert, if not ideologically feminist consciousness, a gender consciousness integral to the struggle for black liberation in the 1970s.” When I read this sentence, my mind went to what I had just seen scrolling through Facebook- the Public’s revival of for colored girls has just been named a NYT Critic’s Pick. Granted, Ben Brantley should not be held as the authority on what constitutes good theatre, but it is hard to conceptualize that a piece centering women of color has gone from being highly criticized (while still successful, I should note), to being a work that seems to be a part of the theatrical canon.

However, I think focusing solely on these successes can be dangerous. On one hand, I think it can be a form of self-protection, similar to what I think my relatives who had survived Jim Crow have done. However, I think it’s important to think critically about the successes and the reasons behind them. It seems that right now in the “post-2016” mindset, people are desperate to prove that they aren’t like that, whatever that is. While I wasn’t around to see the original production, I also wonder what has been left out of history, just like the Black feminists Springer writes about, that would explain why the theatrical women of color were so well-received while women of color in real life were not. I wonder if in 40 years, people will be unlearning and relearning the history of Black feminists, both of the 1970s and of the 2010s. Will they remember why it is so important for this for colored girls to be happening, and to be happening now? Will they know that the audiences are often filled with wealthy, white patrons of the Public who are trying to make America post-racial again? Will they know about Shange’s life and struggles? Will they know about mine?

The power of women of color feminism in inter- & transnational feminist theory

by Charista 0 Comments

On page 25 of Beins and Enzsner’s of “Inter- and Transnational Feminist Theory and Practice in Triple Jeopardy and Conditions” they channel Chandra Mohanty’s thought processes. They write, “internationalism is also associated with naïve and counterproductive objectives of global sisterhood in which some universal commonality (usually oppression by the patriarchy) is presumed to unite women throughout the world.” I think it is important that they noted how transnationalism recognizes how people across the world may share common oppressions, such as the exploitation of their labor or domestic violence, without presuming that the manifestation of these oppressions is the same.

I am reminded of the notion of intersectional feminism and how it closely investigates the overlapping systems of discrimination and sexism that women face based on factors such as gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Intersectionality is crucial in order to understand how multiple oppressions interact to transform people’s lives and identities. With this being said, I feel that it’s important to note that women of color feminism and queer of color critique emerged out of the contradictions of racialized communities, which instead of being monolithic or united, is rather always already differentiated.

Just like Audre Lorde said in “Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference,” one must recognize the fact that difference must be reconceptualized from a problem (something to fear, avoid or suppress) into a “springboard for creative change” (115). Women of color feminism and queer of color critique offer methodologies for understanding racialized communities as always constituted by a variety of racial, gendered, sexualized, and national differences. These intellectual traditions highlight the importance of an analysis that centers the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, and class, and thereby establishes a methodology for understanding coalition as emerging out of this difference. In conclusion, Beins and Enzsner’s discussion about transnationalism, along with women of color feminism and queer of color critique, is crucial for exploring and studying oppressions of various groups of individuals.

My beautiful mother who always encouraged me from a young age to embrace my unique identity and helped me get through bullying, harassment, and discrimination because of my mixed identity.

My mother, an immigrant who arrived to the US from the other side of the world with her sisters, is also a proud feminist and worked hard her entire life so I could attend Barnard to receive a wonderful education surrounded by intelligent women. I am so grateful to her for raising me the way she did.

 

Happy Birthday Zake!

by Kim Hall 0 Comments

Ntozake Shange was born Paulette Linda Williams in Trenton New Jersey on October 18 1948

In celebration, do something nice for yourself today! Be present for someone!

 

Ntozake Shange in Barnard College Archives

 

Ntozake Shange and Joan Vollmer: The Missing Beat Poets

by Eliana 0 Comments

When discussing the literary identities as “Black Bohemian Feminists” honed by Ntozake Shange and Alison Mills, Harryette Mullen alludes to the poetry of the Beat Generation — a literary staple of 1950’s and 1960’s bohemia. Mullen’s analysis of Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo in part revolves around defining the black woman relative to the man, characterized by allegiance to the family and serving as “passionate lovers of black men” (205). This comment allowed me to interrogate, not just the well-known poets of the Beat Generation, but their families and lovers as well. A central name in among the Beats was William S Burroughs. A less central name is Joan Vollmer, his wife who he ‘accidentally’ murdered one night in Mexico. Unlike Shange and Mills, Vollmer is recognized as one of the few female voices of the Beat Generation. In this regard, focusing on the lovers of the great figures of the Beat Generation sheds light on the apparent disposability of the female voice and female body. While Shange was falsely criticized for negatively depicting black men through her work, the murder of of Joan Vollmer is scarcely discussed and hardly tarnished Burroughs’ pristine literary reputation.

Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo concludes with the powerful image of Sassafrass giving birth to a “free child” after she has freed herself from Mitch after suffering from his abuse. This freedom is not just from the male literary gaze, but from systemic violence of any sort targeting the black female body and voice. Mullen mentions that Shange chose art over family in contrast to the bourgeois feminist “who wants to have it all,” but I challenge this with the notion that Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo alongside Daughter’s Geography conveys the bohemian rawness of the Beats through the lens of a mother, sister, lover, and poet. Shange’s art instead honors her family just as authentically as Allen Ginsberg does in Kaddish. Shange’s black bohemian rawness does indeed deserve to be captured and praised poetically alongside Ginsberg and Kerouac, two key figures of the Beat Generation who met at Columbia just over ten years before Shange enrolled at Barnard. While Allen Ginsberg and Kerouac write of mothers and lovers respectively, one is forced to question why the female lover, particularly within a familial context, must be seen only as the subject. When will black women have an equal platform to tell their own stories of motherhood and womanhood? Perhaps this discrepancy explains why there are no black female voices of the Beat generation and why the glorified bohemian literary life of the Beats left Joan Vollmer writing from her grave.

Blogpost Assignment: Archive Find of the Week

by Kim Hall 0 Comments

Student perusing the finding aid to the Ntozake Shange Collection

Dear class, now that you’ve had some collective exposure to The Ntozake Shange Collection and the archives, you should be planning to go on your own to explore and consider how you might help the archive speak to others through your digital story.  This means, as Brianna pointed out on Monday, journeying between the archives, the class readings and Scalar.

Any time before Thanksgiving break, you will write a post about an item found during your archival research.  It does not have to be something you  will use in your project. Pretend you are writing a caption label (20-150 words) and then include some discussion of the following:

Taylor Post #4

by Thompson 2 Comments

“You gotta be mo’ in this world” (21, Shange)

“Indigo’s specialties were other worlds, fiddling” (34, Shange)

“I just can’t imagine another world” (63, Shange)

“There was so much to do. Black people needed so many things” (2, Shange)

—————

I’m thinking a lot about what has got to be birthed into this world and what worlds have got to be birthed:

Sometimes, the apocalyptic-ness of our times threatens to stop me in my tracks–I feel fear spread up my back, belly and chest, all hot and prickly. I go numb.

And then I remember learning to make apple pie with my Grandmother.

I don’t remember a lot about her anymore but I just remember that day: the Kitchen is too hot and I’m sweating and really bad at kneading dough because I am a child, with clumsy child fingers. But her fingers move all swift and skillful “recipe, and ritual”. And all I can remember about the moment otherwise is that, that woman just loved me– so much. And I can feel her taking care of me–teaching me to create something that will nourish our spirits–every time I remember to reach for her (memory).

I think the memory sometimes exists like a pocket-world I can inhabit and draw strength from. It beats the life back into me on days I don’t want to feel anything anymore, when the fear creeps and  I forget to “take care”.

In Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo, there is great concern around what world the girls choose to inhabit, what world the girls choose to create and what world the girls can consider to be ‘real’ and fictional. What is clear to me though, is that no matter how “mad” the girls looked while engaging in their unique and respective rituals of creation throughout the text, they were all on a journey of learning how to take care of themselves and by extension, each other in a time where they were “never meant to survive” (Lorde).

 

Edit:

Youtube Poem by ‘Tasha’ from Debut Album ‘Alone at Last’

Link to article on her Debut Album and Work as an Artist: https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/multidisciplinary-chicago-artist-tasha-comes-into-her-own-as-a-musician-on-alone-at-last/Content?oid=60978249

Recipes, Apothecaries, Wellness and everything in between Blog Post #2

by Correa-Maynard 1 Comment

In part one of Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo, the story is broken up by recipes to fix various different ailments and afflictions. Immediately, upon reading this I was reminded of a similar form of narration expressed in Laura Esquivel’s book-turned-movie, “Como Agua Para Chocolate” which translates to “Like Water for Chocolate”. 

The narrative in “Como Agua Para Chocolate” follows the story of Tita, the youngest daughter of three, who is forbidden to marry until her mother’s death, but has a mutual longing for her childhood love, Pedro. Tita turns to cooking as her primary skill of controlling the emotions within the household that she shares with her mother and two older sisters. I’ve included the movie clip from one of the most famous scenes where Tita makes quail dipped into a rose petal sauce and serves it to everyone in her family, including Pedro. Through her recipe, she seduces everyone and transforms them into incredibly sensual beings. 

The significance of cultural tradition – Blogpost #5

by Charista 2 Comments

As I was reading Shange’s Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo, I noticed that a powerful underlying theme of this piece is the significance of cultural tradition in the lives of contemporary black people, especially during the 1970s when this piece was written. In the piece, Shange makes it evident that the portrayal and depiction of cultural heritage strongly affects the identity and character development of Sassafras, Cypress, and Indigo, partly because of their mother’s influence. 

The mother, Hilda, was a weaver, who instilled values in her daughters to absorb the creativity and discipline of a life in craft which then results in their pursuit of their own individualized arts and passions. While all three daughters were creative– with Indigo cooking and Cypress dancing–Sassafrass is the one who continues her family’s traditional occupation of weaving. I want to focus on Sassafrass in this blog post because to me, she represented cultural tradition.

Even though Sassafrass viewed weaving was an art form, rather than an occupation like her mother, she recognizes that she has a place in a line of weavers and then associates this skill with female identity on the widespread cultural scale. This is evident when Shange writes: “Sassafras was certain of the necessity of her skill for the well-being of women everywhere, as well as for her own. As she passed the shuttle through the claret cotton warp, Sassafrass conjured images of women weaving from all time and all places….”

This quote from Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo displays this theme of the importance of culture and tradition that doesn’t seem to escape Sassafrass’ mind. This quote almost makes it seem as if Sassafrass is realizing her calling to this art form/occupation that holds such a great deal of significance to her mother by acknowledging the importance of weavers and other female weavers everywhere.

 

My grandmother on Mother’s Day in 2016.

 

One of the cultural traditions in my family is learning to cook traditional Filipino dishes with my grandmother. Here are some of the materials we use and some of my mother’s homemade lumpia (Filipino eggrolls).