In \u201cNtozake Shange\u2019s Multilingual Poetics of Relation\u201d, Ania Spyra draws a connection between the English Only\/ Official English movements of the 1980\u2019s and Shange\u2019s publication of poetry that fiercely creates a multilingual narrative and identity. Movements to cement English as the official language in the US have been reoccurring\/racist themes in history since the 1700s. Turning to English has notoriously been an ugly tactic of forced assimilation, and a defense mechanism against immigration and people of color threatening the colonialist power dynamic. The 1980s saw a revival as English was declared the official language in the commonwealth of Virginia. Last week, I had the opportunity to ask Shange whether A Daughter\u2019s Geography (1983) and From Okra to Greens (1984) were a reaction to these homogenizing efforts. She explained that her choreopoems were\/are an unconscious response, and that she sees her poetry as a kind of \u201ccombat poetry\u201d.<\/p>\n
With our class\u2019s return to A Daughter\u2019s Geography, I wanted to explore how Shange deconstructs English to create multilingual and transnational narratives. In \u201cBocas: A Daughter\u2019s Geography\u201d, children have geographical names\u2014\u201cdaughter\/ trinidad\u201d, \u201cson\/ san juan\u201d. The slash seems to simultaneously build and deconstruct. In her choreoessay, \u201cmy pen is a machete\u201d, Shange writes of how she has to take language \u201capart to the bone\/ so that the malignancies fall away\/ leaving us space to literally create our own image.\u201d Here, the slash undecks colonialist grammar, but creates a shared family\/identity among people of color across the Americas. Shange writes, \u201cgo on over the edge\/ go on over the edge old men\u201d. She creates movement as she alludes to the absence of borders; the world is not flat, but home to the flow of transnational identities. Shange noted that the slash can indicate a shift in tone and voice. Perhaps the slash is a new beat\u2014the shift of identity\/geography\u2014celebrating and connecting a patchwork of peoples all part of the same rhythm and history. The last line\u2014\u201cwe are feeding our children the sun\u201d\u2014is fierce, and identity is vibrant. Through deconstructing English and building multilingual narratives, African-Americans can find revolution in the feast of the sun\u2014the vessel of life.<\/p>\n
I want to conclude with a quote Shange said during her class visit: \u201cWhen you take control of the language, you take control of life. When you take control of life, you can have a movement. When you have a movement, you can have a revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n
i have a daughter\/ mozambique
\ni have a son\/ angola
\nour twins
\nsalvador & johannesburg\/ cannot speak
\nthe same language
\nbut we fight the same old men\/ in the new world
\nwe are so hungry for the morning
\nwe’re trying to feed our children the sun
\nbut a long time ago\/ we boarded ships\/ locked in
\ndepths of seas our spirits\/ kisst the earth
\non the atlantic side of nicaragua costa rica
\nour lips traced the edges of cuba puerto rico
\ncharleston & savannah\/ in haiti
\nwe embraced &
\nmade children of the new world
\nbut old men spit on us\/ shackled our limbs
\nbut for a minute
\nour cries are the panama canal\/ the yucatan
\nwe poured thru more sea\/ more ships\/ to manila
\nah ha we’re back again
\neverybody in manila awready speaks spanish
\nthe old men sent for the archbishop of canterbury
\n“can whole continents be excommunicated?”
\n“what wd happen to the children?”
\n“wd their allegiance slip over the edge?”
\n“don’t worry bout lumumba\/ don’t even think bout
\nho chi minh\/ the dead cant procreate”
\nso say the old men
\nbut I have a daughter\/ la habana
\nI have a son\/ guyana
\nour twins
\nsantiago & brixton\/ cannot speak
\nthe same language
\nyet we fight the same old men
\nthe ones who think helicopters rhyme with hunger
\nwho think patrol boats can confiscate a people
\nthe ones whose dreams are full of none of our
\nchildren
\nthe see mae west & harlow in whittled white cafes
\nnear managua\/ listening to primitive rhythms in
\njungles near p\u00e9tionville
\nwith bejeweled benign nativess
\nice skating in abidjan
\nunaware of the rest of us in chicago
\nall the dark urchins
\nrounding out the globe\/ primitively whispering
\nthe earth is not flat old men
\nthere is no edge
\nno end to the new world
\ncuz I have a daughter\/ trinidad
\nI have a son\/ san juan
\nour twins
\ncapetown & palestine\/ cannot speak the same
\nlanguage\/ but we fight the same old men
\nthe same men who thought the earth waz flat
\ngo on over the edge\/ go on over the edge old men
\nyou’ll see us in luanda, or the rest of us
\nin chicago
\nrounding out the morning\/
\nwe are feeding our children the sun<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In \u201cNtozake Shange\u2019s Multilingual Poetics of Relation\u201d, Ania Spyra draws a connection between the English Only\/ Official English movements of the 1980\u2019s and Shange\u2019s publication of poetry that fiercely creates a multilingual narrative and identity. Movements to cement English as the official language in the US have been reoccurring\/racist themes in history since the 1700s. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[134,132,152,150,126,153,151],"class_list":["post-425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogposts","tag-a-daughters-geography","tag-ania-spyra","tag-bocas","tag-english-only-movement","tag-from-okra-to-greens","tag-my-pen-is-a-machete","tag-official-english-movement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425","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\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=425"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":428,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions\/428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}