we\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0therefore \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0learnt to value words
\nfor their meaning\/nuances
\n\u201clanguage\u201d waz not a mere string of words\/it haz a suggestive power
\nwell beyond the immediate n lexical meaning
\nour appreciation of the suggestive\/magical power of language waz reinforced
\nby the games we played w words
\nthrough riddles\/proverbs\/transpositions of syllables
\nor through (nonsensical but) musically arranged
\nwords
\nSo we learnt the music of our language on top of
\nthe \u201ccontent\u201d (Ngugi wa Thiong\u2019o 11)<\/p>\n
Language ought to be nourishing. The shadows of its content feed the memories of a people\u2019s history; its rhythm underscores the music behind morals and symbols. When I think of Shange\u2019s writing, I imagine language that is nourishing through its movement and musicality. In this quote from Ngugi\u2019s Decolonizing the Mind<\/em>, he writes of the necessity of music\/the magic of nuance. Without either, language sits undercooked and static. I felt inspired to re-arrange this passage in the style of Shange because I think the subject resonates with the heart of her writing\u2014language that is good for the mouth, the body and the soul. we\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0therefore \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0learnt to value words for their meaning\/nuances \u201clanguage\u201d waz not a mere string of words\/it haz a suggestive power well beyond the immediate n lexical meaning our appreciation of the suggestive\/magical power of language waz reinforced by the games we played w words through riddles\/proverbs\/transpositions of syllables or through (nonsensical but) musically […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[60,9,3],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-charles-mingus","tag-language","tag-ngugi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52","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=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions\/160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bcrw.barnard.edu\/digitalshange\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nI wrote out my interpretation while listening to Charles Mingus\u2019s \u201cMode D\u2014Trio and Group Dancers\u201d<\/a>. The rhythm of the piece changes gradually, but sometimes swiftly. Its company helped me imagine when Shange might leave space for a gesture at the end of a phrase. I wanted \u201cwords\u201d to be the only word to have its own line. Rhythmically, it felt like a place for a gesture\/to exhale. What are \u201cwords\u201d (nourishing words) but gestures that symbolize what we value\/where we come from\/how we want to be remembered?
\nThe original quote reads, \u201cLanguage was not\u2026It had\u2026\u201d I left the \u201cwas\u201d (implicitly) past tense, but changed the \u201chad\u201d to reflect the present. I\u2019d imagine that language was never just \u201ccontent\u201d for Shange; but language is alive, and has\/has always had the \u201csuggestive power\u201d that nourishes a particular experience of culture and history in its vital rejection of colonialist language\/narrative.
\nLater in the chapter \u201cThe Language of African Literature\u201d, Ngugi writes, \u201cLearning, for a colonial child, became a cerebral activity and not an emotionally felt experience\u201d (17). This brings to mind a quote from If I can Cook<\/em>: \u201cSpeaking American ain\u2019t necessarily nourishing.\u201d Shange makes her words dance in the spirit of protest. Like Ngugi describes, Shange plays games with the structure and rhythm of language\u2014leaving the audience with food for thought. What is good for the body\/what heals the body is a language that rejects colonialist English, and relies on intuition\/the sensical nonsensical\/the music \u201con top of the content\u201d. This is a language that nourishes history and culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"