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Ntozake Shange

Ntozake Shange Books

Playwright

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“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”

LoveSpiritWomenBlackAliveFeminismAncientWomanMetaphysicalDilemmaColored GirlsColoredNtozake Shange
Book:For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf
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“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)”

DeathWomenRaceRacismCelebrationBlack WomenAfrican AmericansBlacksRace RelationsAfrican American Women
Author:Ntozake Shange
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“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.”

ArtMusicRacismDance
Book:Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo
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“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”

LoveHurtPoem
Book:For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf
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“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.”

HateRacismPoliceImmigrantsUnemploymentAfrican AmericansBlacksIsolationism
Author:Ntozake Shange
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“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.”

JusticeActivism
Book:Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo
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“I'm committed to the idea that one of the few things human beings have to offer is the richness of unconscious and conscious emotional responses to being alive. ... The kind of esteem that's given to brightness/smartness obliterates average people or slow learners from participating fully in human life, particularly technical and intellectual life. But you cannot exclude any human being from emotional participation.”

PeopleHumansKindIdeasGivenHuman BeingsAliveEmotionalOffersIntellectualConsciousResponseAverageCommittedEsteemHuman LifeUnconsciousParticipationRichnessBrightnessParticipatingLearnersSmartnessIntellectual LifeEmotional Response
Author:Ntozake Shange
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“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.”

KnowsLongHardSongGirlSoundBlackVoiceBornHalfSilenceStrugglePossibilityInfiniteNotesRhythmHard TimesTunesRighteousSighBlack GirlColored GirlsInfinite Beauty
Book:For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf
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“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.”

IfsKnowsSpiritFallInspiringMagicShareMoonMouthsRoseLegsMossTiarasColored Girls
Book:Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo: A Novel
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