{"id":1663,"date":"2018-09-20T00:25:09","date_gmt":"2018-09-20T04:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/?p=1663"},"modified":"2018-09-20T00:29:45","modified_gmt":"2018-09-20T04:29:45","slug":"the-lost-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/?p=1663","title":{"rendered":"The Lost Generation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1140\" height=\"855\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0VEYdvpmDLo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The poem titled \u2018ii. Improvisation\u201d is a cautionary narrative in which Ntozake Shange weaves a generational pattern of sexism, gender, and voice that follows women like shadows throughout their lives. In this poem, she begins with the phrase \u201cthere is something caught in my throat\u201d and this imagery of choking is continuously repeated throughout every stanza. The significance of this phrase indicates her lack of voice due to the presence of male domination that consumes her physically and mentally. However, she refuses to allow this male subjection to control her daughter as well. She repeatedly \u201cchecks\u201d on her daughter to ensure that she is still \u201csleeping\u201d and not experiencing the atrocities that she is. This desperate plea by Shange to secure the innocence of her daughter ultimately reveals this poem as a vision of collective womanhood and identity. This \u201cdaughter\u201d is a symbol of younger women who have been spared from the degradation of their ancestors due to their strength and sheer will to survive. The ending where Shange refuses materialistic items such as flowers, white wine, or a house and instead states that she wants \u201cthis place out of [her] throat.\u201d By ending this poem with the same phrase she begins with unveils the true cost of freedom and how women struggle not only for themselves, but for their survival as a collective identity in the past, present, and future. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">I choose the song \u201c I Remember\u201d by Lauryn Hill preformed live, because I feel as though the tones of ancestry that this song exudes runs parallel with this specific poem. Furthermore in the lyrics, Hill\u2019s voice noticeably cracks during her singing and it reminded me of Shange\u2019s phrase \u201cthere is something stuck in my throat\u201d. Ultimately this song demonstrates a similar vulnerability that Shange brilliantly illustrates in \u201cii. Improvisations\u201d through the flaws and hardships of womanhood, but how hope still somehow remains at the end of both the song and the poem like a lighthouse at the bay. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The poem titled \u2018ii. Improvisation\u201d is a cautionary narrative in which Ntozake Shange weaves a generational pattern of sexism, gender, and voice that follows women like shadows throughout their lives. In this poem, she begins with the phrase \u201cthere is something caught in my throat\u201d and this imagery of choking is continuously repeated throughout every [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogpost-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1663"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1665,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1663\/revisions\/1665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}