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Summary
Summary
NAACP Image Award Finalist for Outstanding Literary Work
From the poet, novelist, and cultural icon behind the award-winning and extraordinary Broadway play, for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, comes "a kaleidoscopic journey through black womanhood" ( Publishers Weekly , starred review) and a moving bilingual collection of new and beloved poems.
In this stirring collection of more than sixty original and selected poems in both English and Spanish, Ntozake Shange shares her utterly unique, unapologetic, and deeply emotional writing that has made her one of the most iconic literary figures of our time.
With a clear, raw, and affecting voice, Shange draws from her experience as a feminist black woman in American to craft groundbreaking poetry about pain, beauty, and color. In the bestselling tradition of Rupi Kaur's Milk and Honey , Wild Beauty is more than a poetry collection; it is an exquisite call to action for a new generation of women, people of color, feminists, and activists to follow in the author's footsteps in the pursuit of equality and understanding. As The New York Times raves, "Ntozake Shange writes with such exquisite care and beauty that anyone can relate to her message."
Author Notes
Ntozake Shange was born Paulette Linda Williams in Trenton, New Jersey on October 18, 1948. She received a bachelor's degree from Barnard College in 1970 and a master's degree in American studies from the University of Southern California in 1973. She adopted her African name while in graduate school.
She wrote 15 plays, 19 collections of poetry, six novels, five children's books, and three essay collections. Her choreopoem, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf, opened on Broadway in 1976 and received an Obie Award. She also received an Obie in 1981 for her adaptation of Bertold Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children. Her trilogy, Three Pieces, won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry in 1981. She died on October 27, 2018 at the age of 70.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Acclaimed poet, playwright, and novelist Shange, best known for her play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow Is Enuf, takes readers on a kaleidoscopic journey through black womanhood in her first selected volume. Translated into Spanish by Alejandro Alvarez Nieves, the collection spans the course of her prolific 40-year career in both languages. The poems showcase vibrant narratives of black women who are neither solely saints nor sinners. For Shange, it is important to capture the inner lives of black women without judgment and provide a voice for those who have been oppressed by self-imposed silence. In the opening poem, she envisions a new type of deity: "we need a god who bleeds now/ whose wounds are not/ some small male vengeance/ some pitiful concession to humility." Shange often deals with the consequences of failed dreams, as in the poem "Five": "livin dreams'll make ya crazy/ livin dreams'll lead ya to the/ end/ s of yrself." Shange's ability to breathe life into myriad characters and voices is on display throughout the collection. And, despite the instances of disappointment, violence, and struggle, the poems all highlight hope, joy, and optimism. This is an exemplary representation of Shange's body of poetic work. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Poet, playwright, novelist, and essayist Shange (lost in language & sound; or, how i found my way to the arts, 2011) brings together more than 50 selected poems from six previous collections, including for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf (1976), A Daughter's Geography (1983), and The Love Space Demands (1991). Here, too, are new works recently composed after health issues kept her from writing for six years, infusing this dynamic bilingual collection with resurgent joy and determination. Translator Álvarez Nieves details the challenges involved in finding the Spanish equivalents for Shange's colloquial, no-nonsense English, and the poet describes this book as a mélange of the lives of colored people. Indeed, these powerfully swinging, jabbing, lamenting, testifying, and protesting poems deliver an array of voices sharing experiences sensual and violent, personal and communal, all catalyzed by the traumas and tragedies of racism and sexism and the transcendence of art, love, and hope. Dissent, sorrow, humor, and beauty coalesce in a galvanizing, timely, and timeless flow of creativity, valor, compassion, and wisdom.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2017 Booklist