Overall Thoughts on Book

Initially, I was hesitant to read this book, and while feeling relief at the brevity of the book, I also felt like in the 90 or so pages, there was so much to be learned from each of the stories of these women. At times, this book was hard to follow and I had to re read a few of the poems once or twice to really get the meanings. However, at the end of it, I really enjoyed this book. I feel like it portrays these situations as they are: horrible.

I also enjoyed the fact that the book had universal themes. Every girl remembers her first heartbreak, and in today's society, a lot more women are experiencing the pain of rape or the pain of abortion. This book should be read by every girl, and every girl should understand that "love" or what she thinks is love is not always love. Sometimes, love is painful, and sometimes, men can be mean and the world can be mean. This book touches on all of those points, and it uses beautiful language in order to portray meaning and emotion. I really liked this book even though it was unconventional and unlike anything I have ever read before.

Thoughts on why this book was written...

As I was reading, I was wondering why Shange wrote this book and chose to include the situations that she did. Now that I'm done with the book, I realized that she wrote it to raise awareness and to shed light on how African American women process and deal with certain situations. The themes of rape, domestic violence, and failed relationships are universal themes, and women face these things every day. Shange was just bringing them to life and showing how devastating they can be.

Poetry is condensed language that is packed with emotion and imagery. I feel that poetry may have been one of the only ways in which to deal adequately with these situations and the emotions that they leave behind. The language Shange uses may be harsh and, at times, hard to read, this is the language that is used by people that have been through situations like this. They are angry and upset and confused, and these emotions are seen within the poem. I feel that making these stories into poems was the best way to show how the women dealt with the various tense situations presented.

Healing in Community

At the end of this book, there is a beautiful picture of the healing that takes place when people come together to share their burdens. This was amazing to me because these women had gone through so much, yet they still had the courage to stand together and to heal together. This just shows that if you have a strong community, you will be able to make it through your circumstances with the help of those around you.

I also likened this to the way in which the Church is supposed to surround those in crises. This also led me to wonder where the Church fits into this book? I think that this poem can be take as a call to surround those who are dealing with these various issues and to love them. At the end of the book, when the ladies are simply making meals and having fellowship together, I feel that that is one of the most healing things that they could have done. I do not believe that any of them could have made it without the other, and I feel that sharing their fears, failures, hopes and dreams with each other acted as sort of a catharsis. This was a beautiful picture to me as I was reading through the book.

Identity

All of the readings that we have done (especially this one) point to a central theme: Identity. I wrote my paper on African American Women's Identities because of my findings in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, but I'm seeing the need and desire for identity so much more in this book. I wrote about it in a few of my other blogs, but this one will especially touch on that theme.

I think that one of the main themes that this book has is identity; each woman is yearning to make sense of her situation and yearning to find some sort of solace and closure in it. Their situations form their identities, and they cannot escape them. The need for love and acceptance is dripping from the pages of this book, and I feel that this can be said of most women. We want love and acceptance, and we want it to never go away and never change. Each of these women tried to find identity in a relationship, and when each relationship failed, their identities failed with them. For example, the lady in blue gave up what she loved (music) and could not regain that passion apart from her boyfriend. She found her identity in him and forgot about the other parts of her life.

Many of my blogs are on this idea of identity, but I feel that it is extremely important in light of this book. What are some of the other major themes that shine through in this book?

Emotional Availability

One thing that I'm learning about females is the fact that most women need to express themselves in one way or another. I think that Shange was using this fact to perpetuate this poem. Men can be closed off and they can deal with difficult circumstances on their own; however, women are the opposite. Sometimes, women just need to be around other women who understand and can relate to their pain. I believe that this is what this poem is about--women coming together to share in their experiences and find solace in each other. In the book, they are in a conversation with one another, and they are feeding off of one another in order to process and deal with what they have gone through. This poem reflects the need for women of all ages to find identity in themselves and each other. These women are allowing themselves to be emotionally available to each other and to other women and to share their stories. This book allows the women of color to peel away the ideas that little girls have about life and love and allows them to see what potentially could happen to them. It is a real and honest look at how to be emotionally available and how to let yourself be honest about your circumstances.

Lady in Blue

The Lady in Blue interested me a great deal. She speaks a little Spanish, and she had a passion for music. However, she gave this up when she met the "man of her dreams." I believe that love should never cause us to give up that which we love, but it should push us to pursue our dreams more. She gave up her passions for a man that did not love her the way in which she loved him, and to me, this was one of the saddest parts of the book. A few of the ladies did this. The Lady in Red pursued someone who didn't love her for a while. I feel that this is a theme to the book: going the distance for someone that you love and not receiving the love that you deserve back. I just wanted to reach out to these girls and let them know that there is a love that will be returned back to them. I believe that this is a societal problem as well; my generation seeks love in places that will not give it back. The Lady in Blue and the Lady in Red (and others) were left with the pieces of their hearts that were shattered by unreturned love. This is such a sad part of this story. I believe that these ladies tried to find their identities in love, and they lost their identities when the love was not returned.

Lady in Yellow

I really connected with the Lady in Yellow the most in the play. She seems to be the most naive in the beginning, and she really relates the pressures of being "the only virgin at graduation." To me, symbolizes happiness and sunshine, and this lady was one of the only ones (in the beginning) to seem to be excited and happy about her circumstances. She was thrilled when she lost her virginity in the back of a car. Why? I think it was because it was what everyone else was doing. I think that her story is so universal because how many times do we just do things because others are doing them? In high school, the pressure to be like everyone else is intense, and this lady succumbed to those pressures.

The lady in yellow also caused the other ladies to reminisce about their own times when they were younger and things were simpler. I think she helped these ladies to take a breather from their own circumstances and remember when they were happier and sex wasn't a bad thing. I'm not advocating pre-marital sex or anything, but I'm saying that these women had complicated relationships to the idea of sex. The lady in yellow helped them to remember when it was actually a good thing to be in love and happy. This makes her a very important character in the poem.

What do the colors mean?

The author of this story places a label on each of these girls by using a color to represent them. I believe that the author wants to present a sort of "blank slate" that each of us is born with, and then she wants to present the fact that the blank slate is colored by circumstances--not skin tone. To me, the colors represent something that each girl has gone through. The author has defined each of the girls by the color that they represent. For example, the lady in red is angry because, apparently, she has been raped by someone she knows.

These colors not only give meaning to each girl, they give vivid imagery on what each girl is feeling throughout the course of the production. I think I like this better than giving each girl a name--I can see them through their colors.

So my question is this: What do these colors mean to you? Are they even significant at all?

The Role of Stories

In this book, emphasis was placed on both the content of the book and the performance. Because of this, each woman took on a particular story, and these stories defined them. The women did not have names, so their only source of identity was their names and their stories. But isn't that what life is like? When I ask someone to tell me about himself or herself, he or she shares stories that have shaped them. The women in this book were shaped by their stories; the women in this book were colored by their stories. I do not even remember the book say whether or not each girl was an African American (I assume that it was understood), but they were just telling their stories. Because of this, I feel like the reader gets to know each girl on an individual and personal level.

The poem makes a mention of "black girl's shoulders" on the first page, but then the reader does not really see how each woman looks. This would obviously be different if we were watching the performance, but by reading the play, one can't tell what each woman looks like and how their mannerisms are. In your opinion, what does this signify? What does the fact that there are no names given mean in light of the meaning of the poem?

First Impressions

This book is unlike any book that I've ever read. I was interested to see how this book was structured when I first began reading it, and while it was a quick read, it was packed full with hidden meanings and symbols.

When I first opened the book, I did not find an epic poem or a play; I found both. This was so interesting to me because I could literally see the play coming alive. Again, this wasn't an easy ready for me, and I really do think seeing the choreopoem would allow me to make more sense of it. However, I really liked the stage directions at some points. The story lines were a big difficult to follow, but once I was able to keep the women and their stories straight, I liked the poem much better.

I also liked the universality of the poem. These situations that these women found themselves in are not just common to African American women; I felt that any woman could face these situations. Any woman could be raped by a friend or "give it up in the back of a Buick." These stories are common to all women, and I think this book comes down to how all women feel when taken advantage of. This book carries many themes and many meanings, but I think one major one is how something had been taken away from each of these women. Whether virginity, innocence, or a baby, these women found commonality in the fact that they all had lost something. To me, that was one of the biggest themes of the book.