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561 reviews for:
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf
Ntozake Shange
4.29 AVERAGE
561 reviews for:
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf
Ntozake Shange
4.29 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
reflective
completely destroyed me, reduced me to tears and yet i could still see the words through them. at a certain point it felt like i didn't have to do anything to read this - it just kept going, like it was a thing that was happening more than it was a thing i was engaging with. i was there to sit, and watch, and i watched. the text itself feels rhythmic, like it has the accompanying performance baked in.
just, holy shit
just, holy shit
This is a choreopoem told by ladies in the colors of the rainbow. Supposedly their stories should sum up what it's like to be a black woman.
I liked some of it. And I liked the end a lot. But mostly I felt sad because all the ladies more or less had the same story and I feel like there are more stories out there. I'm tired of hearing this story. Black women don't have to be stuck here. We can be smart and we can take care of our bodies and our hearts. I know we can. Also bell hooks says so. So there.
I liked some of it. And I liked the end a lot. But mostly I felt sad because all the ladies more or less had the same story and I feel like there are more stories out there. I'm tired of hearing this story. Black women don't have to be stuck here. We can be smart and we can take care of our bodies and our hearts. I know we can. Also bell hooks says so. So there.
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange is a poem written for a stage performance or a play written in poetic form. Perhaps it is appropriate to call it both. There are moments in the reading when the stage direction feels incredibly integral to the experience of reading and others when it's slightly distracting. Shange brings her characters to life and delves into the beauty and the hardship of life with equal intensity. Shange's poetry For Colored girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf offers a commentary on myriad issues and highlights the connections between us and our actions that we often fail to see or even willfully refuse to see. I longed to see the stage performance as I read. I will likely watch the movie on YouTube some time soon. The DVD of both the movie and the Broadway Theatre Archive versions are available on Amazon.
It feels odd to review this book, because as both the title and the introduction say, it is "for colored girls", and I am neither of those. My opinion doesn't really matter here, but for what it's worth, I found it evocative and tender. It has something of a Brechtian feel to it, for me, although it is less epic and more impressionistic than his work. As I read, I found myself imagining how I would stage it if I were a director, which is not a fantasy I indulge very often these days, so I am grateful for that as well.
I really need to make a habit of reading more plays, because every time I do I have so much fun! This play had moments that were so amazingly potent and screamed its message right in your face and others that made you say “what on earth is that about?” I’ll be looking up the filmed version to watch ASAP because I can tell it’s a piece that needs to be seen to be fully appreciated. What I did get from this read, though, was a thread of pain, negligence, violence, abuse, and invisibility—all of which were demonstrated in metaphorical and literal ways. And the ending is without a doubt a lasting image that will stay with me for a long, long while. Not a read for the faint of heart.
This is a powerful book. I listened to it, rather than read the physical book, which was a very enjoyable experience. The audio book is performed by Thandie Newton and she brought this choreopoem to life. I would love to see this performed live. And I'm interested to check out anything else Ntozake Shange has written.
I have never seen the movie or the stage version of this, so for some reason I went into this expecting some talk about mental illness among black women (based upon the title) or black women overcoming adversity. There were some lines that I liked and some poems that I thought were particularly good, but when I read the last page I had one overwhelming thought, 'That was really overrated.' These poems read more like a bunch of little stories. And all the stories are about black women's misery, pain and heartbreak. I guess it was groundbreaking to tell a black woman's story in the 70s in this fashion. To be gritty and honest about our lives. I appreciate the delicacy she took with these stories. However! Am I supposed to be intrigued and impressed with a book featuring more of the usual fiction stories of how black women's lives are so awful? I liked the diversity in the women's life experiences, but the underlying theme was the same in all of them: it sucks to be us. Kind of depressing. I wish I liked this more.