β
Where there is a woman there is magic.
β
β
Ntozake Shange
β
i found god in myself
and i loved her
i loved her fiercely
β
β
Ntozake Shange
β
one thing I donβt need
is any more apologies
i got sorry greetin me at my front door
you can keep yrs
i donβt know what to do wit em
they donβt open doors
or bring the sun back
they donβt make me happy
or get a mornin paper
didnβt nobody stop usin my tears to wash cars
cuz a sorry.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf)
β
my spirit is too ancient to understand the separation of soul & gender
β
β
Ntozake Shange (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf)
β
Where there is a woman there is magic. If there is a moon falling from her mouth, she is a woman who knows her magic, who can share or not share her powers. A woman with a moon falling from her mouth, roses between her legs and tiaras of Spanish moss, this woman is a consort of the spirits.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo)
β
Through my tears
I found god in myself
and I loved her fiercely
β
β
Ntozake Shange
β
Ever since I realized there waz someone callt/
a colored girl an evil woman a bitch or a nag/
i been tryin not to be that & leave bitterness/
in somebody else's cup...
β
β
Ntozake Shange (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf)
β
And this is for Colored girls who have considered suicide, but are moving to the ends of their own rainbows.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf)
β
i usedta live in the world
really be in the world
free & sweet talkin
good mornin & thank-you & nice day
uh huh
i cant now
i cant be nice to nobody
nice is such a rip-off
regular beauty & a smile in the street
is just a set-up
β
β
Ntozake Shange (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf)
β
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
her infinite beauty
she's half-notes scattered
without rhythm/ no tune
sing her sighs
sing the song of her possibilities
sing a righteous gospel
let her be born
let her be born
& handled warmly.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf)
β
without any assistance or guidance from you
i have loved you assiduously for 8 months 2 wks & a day
i have been stood up four times
i've left 7 packages on yr doorstep
forty poems 2 plants & 3 handmade notecards i left
town so i cd send to you have been no help to me
on my job
you call at 3:00 in the mornin on weekdays
so i cd drive 27 1/2 miles cross the bay before i go to work
charmin charmin
but you are of no assistance
i want you to know
this waz an experiment
to see how selifsh i cd be
if i wd really carry on to snare a possible lover
if i waz capable of debasin my self for the love of another
if i cd stand not being wanted
when i wanted to be wanted
& i cannot
so
with no further assistance & no guidance from you
i am endin this affair
this note is attached to a plant
i've been waterin since the day i met you
you may water it
yr damn self
β
β
Ntozake Shange (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf)
β
i loved you on purpose
i was open on purpose
i still crave vulnerability & close talk
& i'm not even sorry bout you bein sorry
you can carry all the guilt & grime ya wanna
just dont give it to me
i cant use another sorry
next time
you should admit
you're mean/ low-down/ triflin/ & no count straight out
steada bein sorry alla the time
enjoy bein yrself
β
β
Ntozake Shange (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf)
β
The slaves who were ourselves had known terror intimately, confused sunrise with pain, & accepted indifference as kindness.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo)
β
i'm only human, & inadequacy is what makes us human, & if we was perfect we wdnt have nothin to strive for, so you might as well go on & forgive me pretty baby, cause i'm sorry
β
β
Ntozake Shange (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf)
β
i am really colored & really sad sometimes & you hurt me
more than i ever danced outta/ i am ready to die like a lily in the
desert/ & i cdnt let you in on it cuz i didnt know/ here
is what i have/ poems/ big thighs/ lil tits/ &
so much love/ will you take it from me this one time/
please this is for you
β
β
Ntozake Shange (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf)
β
but bein alive & bein a woman & bein colored is a metaphysical
dilemma/ i havent conquered yet/ do you see the point
my spirit is too ancient to understand the separation of soul & gender/ my love is too delicate to have thrown back on my face
my love is too delicate to have thrown back on my face
my love is too beautiful to have thrown back on my face
my love is too sanctified to have thrown back on my face
my love is too magic to have thrown back on my face
my love is too saturday nite to have thrown back on my face
my love is too complicated to have thrown back on my face
my love is too music to have thrown back on my face
β
β
Ntozake Shange (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf)
β
i survive on intimacy & tomorrow/
β
β
Ntozake Shange (for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf)
β
What I want and I wanted to be unforgettable.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf)
β
let her be born / let her be born / & handled warmly.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf)
β
we need a god who bleeds now
a god whose wounds are not
some small male vengeance
some pitiful concession to humility
a desert swept with dryin marrow in honor of the lord
we need a god who bleeds
spreads her lunar vulva & showers us in shades of scarlet
thick & warm like the breath of her
our mothers tearing to let us in
this place breaks open
like our mothers bleeding
the planet is heaving mourning our ignorance
the moon tugs the seas
to hold her/to hold her
embrace swelling hills/i am
not wounded i am bleeding to life
we need a god who bleeds now
whose wounds are not the end of anything
β
β
Ntozake Shange
β
i done forgot all abt words
aint got no definitions
β
β
Ntozake Shange (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf)
β
i got 15 trumpets where other women got hips
& a upright bass for both sides of my heart
β
β
Ntozake Shange (I Live in Music: Poem)
β
(Interviews Ntozake Shange) βWhat do you think an artistβs job is?β
βTo keep our sensibilities alive, so we arenβt numb by our struggles to survive. Thatβs what I think our job is right now.
β
β
Eileen Myles (The Importance of Being Iceland: Travel Essays in Art)
β
i found god in myself
& i loved her/ i loved her fiercely
β
β
Ntozake Shange
β
You can't fuck somebody into loving you.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo)
β
rise up fallen fighters
unfetter the stars
dance with the universe
& make it ours
β
β
Ntozake Shange (From Okra to Greens: A Difference Love Story)
β
Being alive and being a woman is all I got but being colored is a metaphysical dilemma I haven't conquered yet
β
β
Ntozake Shange (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf)
β
iβm a poet who writes in english come to share the worlds witchu
β
β
Ntozake Shange (for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf)
β
i want you to know
this waz an experiment
to see how selfish i cd be
if i wd really carry on to snare a possible lover
if i waz capable of debasin my self for the love of another
if i cd stand not being wanted
when i wanted to be wanted
& i cannot
so
with no further assistance & no guidance from you
i am endin this affair
this note is attached to a plant
i've been waterin since the day i met you
you may water it
yr damn self
β
β
Ntozake Shange (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf)
β
I was a happy young woman and I just happened to write poetry. I wasnβt trying to get anywhere, I was where I wanted to be...β
Rest In love Queen!!
β
β
Ntozake Shange
β
Being alive and being a woman is all I got but being colored is a metaphysical dilemma I haven't conquered yet.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf)
β
& i am more/ than i am not/
β
β
Ntozake Shange (The Love Space Demands: A Continuing Saga)
β
[S]ince I became a woman, boys were gonna follow me around more often, 'cause they could follow the trail of stars that fall from between my legs after dark.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo)
β
and poet Ntozake Shange put it, βi found god in myself / and i loved her / i loved her
β
β
Sue Monk Kidd (The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman's Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine)
β
found god in myself/and i loved her/i loved her fiercely βNTOZAKE SHANGE
β
β
Jada Pinkett Smith (Worthy)
β
The poems introduce the girls to other kinds of people of color, other worlds. To adventure, and kindness, and cruelty. Cruelty that we usually think we face alone, but we donβt. We discover that by sharing with each other we find strength to go on. The poems are the playβs first hint of the global misogyny that we women face.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf)
β
Staples sees in Ntozake Shange's play For Colored Girls "a collective appetite for black male blood." Yet it is my female children and my black sisters who lie bleeding all around me, victims of the appetites of our brothers.
β
β
Audre Lorde (Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches)
β
lady in blue one thing i dont need is any more apologies i got sorry greetin me at my front door you can keep yrs i dont know what to do wit em they dont open doors or bring the sun back they dont make me happy or get a mornin paper didnt nobody stop usin my tears to wash cars cuz a sorry i am simply tired of collectin βi didnt know i was so important to youβ iβm gonna haveta throw some away i cant get to the clothes in my closet for alla the sorries iβm gonna tack a sign to my door leave a message by the phone βif you called to say yr sorry call somebody else i dont use em anymoreβ i
β
β
Ntozake Shange (for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf)
β
I found God in myself and I loved her . . .
I loved her fiercely.
β
β
Ntozake Shange
β
let her be born let her be born & handled warmly.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf)
β
i usedta live in the world
then i moved to HARLEM
& my universe is now six blocks
β
β
Ntozake Shange (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf)
β
The reaction from black men to for colored girls was in a way very much like the white reaction to black power. The body traditionally used to power and authority interpreting, through their own fear, my work celebrating the self-determination and centrality of women as a hostile act. For men to walk out feeling that the work was about them spoke to their own patriarchal delusions more than to the actuality of the work itself. It was as if merely placing the story outside themselves was an attack. for colored girls was and is for colored girls.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf)
β
one thing i dont need is any more apologies i got sorry greetin me at my front door you can keep yrs i dont know what to do wit em they dont open doors or bring the sun back they dont make me happy
β
β
Ntozake Shange (for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf)
β
lady in red but if youβve been seen in public wit him danced one dance kissed him good-bye lightly lady in purple wit closed mouth lady in blue pressin charges will be as hard as keepin yr legs closed while five fools try to run a train on you lady in red these men friends of ours who smile nice stay employed and take us out to dinner lady in purple lock the door behind you lady in blue wit fist in face to fuck lady in red who make elaborate mediterranean dinners & let the art ensemble carry all ethical burdens while they invite a coupla friends over to have you are sufferin from latent rapist bravado & we are left wit the scars lady
β
β
Ntozake Shange (for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf)
β
Knowing a woman's mind and spirit had been allowed me, with dance I discovered my body more intimately than I had imagined possible. With the acceptance of the ethnicity of my thighs and backside, came a clearer understanding of my voice as a woman and poet. The freedom to move in space, to demand of my own sweat perfection that could continually be approached, though never known, waz poem to me, my body and mind ellipsing, probably for the first time in my life. Dance as explicated by Raymond Sawyer and Ed Mock insisted that everything African, everything halfway colloquial, a grimace, a strut, an arched back over a yawn, waz mine. I moved what waz my unconscious knowledge of being a colored woman's body to my known everydayness.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf)
β
anyway, the whole world knows, european & non-european alike, the whole world knows that nobody loves the black woman like they love farrah fawcett-majors. the whole world dont turn out for a dead black woman like they did for marilyn monroe. (actually, the demise of josephine baker waz an international event, but she waz also a war hero)
β
β
Ntozake Shange
β
Sassafras had never wanted to weave, she just couldn't help it. There was something about the feel of raw fleece and finished threads and dainty patterned pieces that was as essential to her as dancing to Carmen De Lavallade, or singing to Aretha Franklin. Her mama had done it, and her mama before that; and making cloth was the only tradition Sassafras inherited that gave her a sense of womanhood that was rich and sensuous, not tired and stingy.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo)
β
Maybe Jane was right. Maybe he was wrong to have filled her head with tales of Bessie Smith and Josephine Baker, let alone take her to see Jackie Wilson, Etta James, Tina Turner and the Ikettes. Maybe it wasnβt right to wake up to Chico Hamilton, Lee Morgan, Charlie Parker, and Art Blakey in the morning. Watch the sunset with Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor, and Little Willie John. But Greer didnβt know what else to offer that was beautiful and colored and alive, all at the same time.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (Betsey Brown: A Novel)
β
Cypress laid waste to the tunnels, caverns, and shadows of the other world. She drew upon memories of her own blood: her presence would be a mortal threat to those who wounded, maimed, her ancestors, her lovers, Leroy. Like those women before her, who loaded bundles on their heads and marched off to fields that were not their own, like the "bearers" of her dreams swamped with births of infants they would never rear, Cypress clung to her body, the body of a dancer; the chart of her recklessness, her last weapon, her perimeters: blood, muscle, and the will to simply change the world.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo)
β
I used to be a roller coaster girl"
(for Ntozake Shange)
I used to be a roller coaster girl
7 times in a row
No vertigo in these skinny legs
My lipstick bubblegum pink
As my panther 10 speed.
never kissed
Nappy pigtails, no-brand gym shoes
White lined yellow short-shorts
Scratched up legs pedaling past borders of
humus and baba ganoush
Masjids and liquor stores
City chicken, pepperoni bread
and superman ice cream
Cones.
Yellow black blending with bits of Arabic
Islam and Catholicism.
My daddy was Jesus
My mother was quiet
Jayne Kennedy was worshipped
by my brother Mark
I donβt remember having my own bed before 12.
Me and my sister Lisa shared.
Sometimes all three Moore girls slept in the Queen.
You grow up so close
never close enough.
I used to be a roller coaster girl
Wild child full of flowers and ideas
Useless crushes on polish boys
in a school full of white girls.
Future black swan singing
Zeppelin, U2 and Rick Springfield
Hoping to be Jessieβs Girl
I could outrun my brothers and
Everybody else to that
reoccurring line
I used to be a roller coaster girl
Till you told me I was moving too fast
Said my rush made your head spin
My laughter hurt your ears
A scream of happiness
A whisper of freedom
Pouring out my armpits
Sweating up my neck
You were always the scared one
I kept my eyes open for the entire trip
Right before the drop I would brace myself
And let that force push my head back into
That hard iron seat
My arms nearly fell off a few times
Still, I kept running back to the line
When I was done
Same way I kept running back to you
I used to be a roller coaster girl
I wasnβt scared of mountains or falling
Hell, I looked forward to flying and dropping
Off this earth and coming back to life
every once in a while
I found some peace in being out of control
allowing my blood to race
through my veins for 180 seconds
I earned my sometime nicotine pull
I buy my own damn drinks & the ocean
Still calls my name when it feels my toes
Near its shore.
I still love roller coasters
& you grew up to be
Afraid
of all girls who cld
ride
Fearlessly
like
me.
β
β
Jessica Care Moore
β
Ntozake Shange tells us it's not so good to be born a girl. She does not object to being born a girl. She objects to what it means when you are born a girl. She objects to the way that girls are treated. She objects to the way that our dreams are stifled. She objects to the way that we are not taken seriously, we are there as some sort of plaything,
β
β
Nikki Giovanni (Shimmy Shimmy Shimmy Like My Sister Kate: Looking At The Harlem Renaissance Through Poems)
β
there some coloureds, negroes, blacks, cd make a living big enough to leave there to come here: but no one went there much any more for all sorts of reasons. the big reason being immigration restrictions & unemployment. nowadays, immigration restrictions of every kind apply to any non-european persons who want to go there from here. just like unemployment applies to most non-european persons without titles of nobility or north american university training. some who want to go there from here risk fetching trouble with the customs authority there. or later with the police, who, can tell who's not from there cuz the shoes are pointed & laced strange/the pants be for august & yet it's january/the accent is patterned for port-au-prince, but working in crown heights. what makes a person comfortably ordinary here cd make him dangerously conspicuous there.
so some go to london or amsterdam or paris, where they are so many no one tries to tell who is from where. still the far right wing of every there prints lil pamphlets that say everyone from here shd leave there & go back where they came from.
β
β
Ntozake Shange
β
& alla my niggah temper came outta control
& i wdnt dance wit nobody
& i talked English loud
& i love you more than i waz mad
β
β
Ntozake Shange
β
somebody almost run off wit alla my stuff
& i waz standin there
lookin at myself
the whole time
β
β
Ntzoake Shange
β
Love kisses were the best kind. There was no denying that a kiss from someone you loved was different from any other kind of kiss and should be studied up on and looked at carefully, so you could recognize it when love came down on you. Thatβs what love did. It came down on you like rain or sunshine.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (Betsey Brown: A Novel)
β
Jane didnβt miss white folks, she didnβt like white folks, she tried not to think about them. She kept her world as colored as she could. There was enough of it. From Langston Hughes to Sojourner Truth, her childrenβs worlds were hardly deprived
β
β
Ntozake Shange (Betsey Brown: A Novel)
β
This was one night she would see all the stars and the moon as the sun rose, when there was that peculiar mingling of past and tomorrows, when the sun glanced cross the sky to the moon hoverin over the telephone wires, and everyone else was ignorant of the powers of light and the dark.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (Betsey Brown: A Novel)
β
The street was vacant. Like a big old movie set. Nothing. Nobody to do a thing with. What could she do alone? Better yet, what could she do alone that could exclude the white folks, who were nowhere to be seen except in her wounds and aches of memories. Betsey decided to play hop-scotch, but she laid the hop-scotch pattern out with enough room to write βFor Colored Only,β βCrackers and Dogs Not Allowed,β βPeckerwoods Got No Welcome Here,β βGuineas Go Home.β Betseyβs hop-scotch was something to behold. Chalk never seemed so powerful as when it messed with white folks.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (Betsey Brown: A Novel)
β
When I die, I will not be guilty of having left a generation of girls behind thinking that anyone can tend to their emotional health other than themselves.
β
β
Ntozake Shange
β
The pedicure Regina executed herself. She wanted Betsey to feel relaxed and cared about. The way all little Negro girls should feel. Not cramped or out of place, or funny-looking or easy. Just lovely and well-loved.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (Betsey Brown: A Novel)
β
A child had a right to be a child. Even in Mississippi a girl was a girl till her time came. White folks or no white folks. Nobody sent a little olβ thing out to take up for the whole damn race.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (Betsey Brown: A Novel)
β
other worlds. To adventure, and kindness, and cruelty. Cruelty that we usually think we face alone, but we donβt. We discover that by sharing with each other we find strength to go on. The poems are the playβs first hint of the global misogyny that we women face.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf)
β
What ever was she going to do? She took the emery boards from the top left drawer and started doing her nails. She was going to play bridge, but before she did that she was going to have a scotch and soda and play a game of solitaire with the prettiest hands a woman with this many problems could have.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (Betsey Brown: A Novel)
β
Through my tears 1 found god in myself and I loved
her fiercely".
β
β
Ntozake Shange (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf)
β
I found God in Myself and I loved Her, and I loved Her, and I loved HerΒ .Β .Β . fiercely. βNTOZAKE SHANGE
β
β
Tosha Silver (Change Me Prayers: The Hidden Power of Spiritual Surrender)
β
i cdnt stand it
i cdnt stand bein colored & sorry at the same time
it's so redundant in the modern world
β
β
Ntozake Shange (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf)
β
And this is for Colored girls who have considered suicide, but are moving to the ends of their own rainbows.β -For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuf, Ntozake Shange, 1975
β
β
Tatiana Obey (Sistah Samurai)
β
Exiles, she and Leroy. They didn't need to go to Paris; that would do no good. What's the point of being spat on in France? What could they do in Rio, where black people are a mythological presence? No, the frontiers in Leroy's destiny were the sounds he heard and gave back as music; for Cypress the terrain of the new world was art. Her dance, like her people before her, adapted to the contours of her new land.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo)
β
Some folks you tell some things, some folks you donβt.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo)
β
When you realize your blood has come, smile; an honest smile, for you are about to have an intense union with your magic. This is a private time...for thinking and dreaming. [D]raining worries, fall away as your body lets what she doesn't need go from her. Remember that you are a river; your banks are red honey where the Moon wanders.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo)
β
Lord help women who shake hands like a dead fish.
β
β
Ntozake Shange (Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo)