{--trom its inception in California in 1974 to its highly acclaimed critical suc- ++ l- cess at Joseph Papp's Public Theater and on Broadway, the 0bie Award- winning for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf has excited, inspired, and transformed aud[ences all over the country. Passionate and fearless, Shange's words reveal what it is to be of color and female in the twentieth century. First published in 1975 when it was praised by The New Yorker for "encompassing every feeling and experience a woman has ever had," for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf will be read and performed for generations to come. Here is the complete text, with stage directions, of a groundbreaking dramatic prose poem written in vivid and powerful language that resonates with unusual beauty in its fierce message to the world. ,\'r':r,{r:...:'. 3r;i\{;l'. is a renowned playwright, poet (Nappy Ed$es and The Love Space Demandsl, and novelist (Sassafrass, Cypress & Indi€,o, Betsey Brown, and Liliane)' She lives in Philadelphia. VISIT US ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB http://www.SimonSays.com Cover illustration by Paul Davis Studio Author photograph by J. L. St. lvlary Scribner Poetry Published by Simon & Schuster New York lilffilflilffil[ilil llllillll[ll u.s. $9.00 ISBN 0-tBq-Bqrah-1 Can. $13.00 011?0100 The critie applaud Ntozake Shangob for mlorcd girls who hwe considercd suicide/ when the minbmr is enuf "Overruhelming . Itbioyous and alive, affnmatiruinthefrm ddespain" l4ratt, New York Doily Nerus -Douglas '?assionate and lyrical.... In poetry and pmse Shange de- scribes what it means to be a black woman in a world of mean sheets, deceitful nen and aching loss." -Allan Wallach, Newsdoy "These poems and pnose selections are. richwiththe author's special voice: by turns bitbn ftrnng imnic, and savage; ffencely honest and pensonal" -Martin Got&ied, New Yorkpost 'Ntozake Shange's exbaordinary'choreopoem.'. isadrandc elegy for black women with an undencurrent message for emry- one. Its thene is not sonow . but courage. Its strength is its passion and its rcality. An unforgettable collage of one rmmanb vieru of the ryomen of her race, facing errcrything from rape to unrequited lorn. Wisdon and naivete go hand in hand. Wounds and dreams interningle; shong passions nelt into simple courage." -William A. Raidy, L.L Prress/Nenrhouse Newspapers "Remenber when poetry used to grve you chills, make you bemble? Ntozake Shange writes that kind of **-g poetry. It hasthe porrcrtonovea bodyto tears, to rage, andto an ultinab nrsh dlorn." magnzine -Marilyn Stasio, Cue 'Ntozalce Shangeb poeEy appmaches the force of a whirl- wind"" & worldwide News -EncoreAmericon also by ntozake shange for colored girls who theater three pieces spell #z have considered suicide/ a photograph: lovers in motion boogie woogie landscapes poetry when the rainbow is enuf nappy edges a daughter's geography ridin the moon in texas the love space demands fiction sassafrass, cypress & indigo betsey brornm liliane a choreopoem/ ntozake shange scribner poetry for the spirits of my grandma poems by title viola benzena murray owens and my great aunt dork phroses 3 effie owens josey graduotion nite 7 now i love somebody more than 77 no ossistonce 73 s i'm apoet who 74 SCRENER POETRY Iotent ropists' 77 SCRIBNER 1230 Avenue of the Americas obortion cycle#7 22 New York, NY 10020 This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents sechito 23 either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, Iiving or dead, toussaint 25 is entirely coincidental. one 37 Copyright @ 1975, 7976,7977 by Ntozake Shange AII rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole i used to live in the world 36 or in part in any form. pyromid 39 First Scribner Poetry edition 1997 SCRIBNER POETRY and design ile trademilks of Macmillan Libra4r Reference USA, lnc., no more love poems #1 42 used uder license by Simon & Schuster, the publisher ofthis work. Manufactured in the United States of America no more Tove poems#2 43 109876 no more Iove poems #3 44 The Library of Congress has cataloged the Collier edition as follows: Shange, Ntozake. no more love poems #4 45 For colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf : a choreopoem Ntozake Shange. ed. 49 / -1st Collier Books somebody olmost walked off wid ollo my stuff p. cm. l. Title. sorry 52 [PS3569.H3324F6 1.9891 81,1'.54--dc1g 88-32633 o nite with beau willie brown 55 CIP 0-684-84326-9 o Ioying on of honds 60 Amateur and professional performance rights to this play are controlled by Samuel French, Inc., 45 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10010, and must be procured before proceeding with production. Pleose Note; Special publicity posters are available. Write to Samuel French, Inc., for details. for colored giris who have considered suicide / when the roinbow is enuf was first presented at the Bacchanal, a woman's bar just outside Berkeley, California. With Paula Moss & Elvia Marta who worked with me in Raymond Sawyer's Afro-American Dance Company & Halifu's The Spirit of Dance; Nashira Ntosha, a guitarist & program coordinator at KPOO-FM [one of the few Bay Area stations focusing on women's programming); joanna Jessica Hagedorn, a poet & reading tour companion; & Griffin, co-founder of the Bacchanal, publisher of Effie's Press, & a poet. We just did it. Working in bars waz a circumstantial aesthetic of poetry in San Francisco from Spec's, an old beat hangout, to 'new'Malvina's, Minnie's Can-Do Club, the Coffee Gallery, & the Rippletad. With as much space as a small studio on the Lower East Side, the five of us, five women, proceeded to dance, make poems, make music, make a woman's theater for about twenty patrons. This was December of tgZq. We were a little raw, self-conscious, & eager. Whatever we wete discover- ing in ourselves that nite had been in process among us for almost two years. I first met Jessica & Nashira thru Third World Communications [The Vr'oman's CollectiveJ when the first anthology of Third World women writers in the U.S.A. was published. With janice Mirikitani, Avotcja, Carol Lee Sanchez, Janet Campbell Hale, Kitty Tsui, |anic Cobb, Thulani, and a score more, San Francisco waz inundated with women poets, women's readings, & a multi- linguai woman presence, new to all of us & desperately appreciated. The force of these readings on all our lives waz to ixl become evident as we directed our energies toward clarifying our Such joy & excitement I knew in Sonoma, then I would commute ]ives-& the lives of our mothers, daughters, & grancimothers_ back the sixty miles to San Francisco to study dance with as women. During the same period, Shameless Hussy press & The Raymond Sawyer, Ed Mock, & Halifu. Knowing a woman's mind oakland women's press coilective were arso reading anywhere & spirit had been allowed me, with dance I discovered my body & everywhere they could. In a single season, Susan Griffin, more intimately than I had imagined possible. With the Grahn, |udy Barbara Gravelle, & Alta, were promoting the poetry acceptance of the ethnicity of my thighs & backside, came a clearer & presence of women in a legendary male_poet,s environment. understanding of my voice as a woman & as a poet. The freedom This is the energy & part of the style that nurtured for colorcd to move in space, to demand of my own sweat a perfection girls . that could continually be approached, though never known, waz poem to me, my body & mind ellipsing, probably for the first More stable as a source of inspiration & historical continuity waz time in my life. ]ust as Women's Studies had rooted me to an the program Women's Studies at Sonoma State College, where articulated female heritage & imperative, so dance as explicated I worked with |. f. Wilson, ]oanna Griffin, & Wopo Holup over a by Raymond Sawyer & Ed Mock insisted that everything African, three year span. Courses designed to make women's lives & everything halfway colloquial, a grimace, a strut, an arched dynamics familiar to us, such as: Woman as Artist; Woman as back over a yawn, waz mine. I moved what waz my unconscious Poet; Androgynous Myths in Literature; Women,s Biography I & II; knowledge of being in a colored woman's body to my known Third World Women Writers, are inextricably bound to the everydayness. The depth of my past waz made tangible to me in development of my sense of the world, myself, & women,s lan_ Sawyer's Anonse, a dance exploring the Diaspora to contemporary guage. Studying the mythology of women from antiquity to the Senegalese music, pulling ancient trampled spirits out of present present day led directly to the piece sechito in which a dance tense Afro-American Dance. Watching Ed Mock re-create the hall girl is perceived as deity, as slut, as innocent & knowing. Step Brothers' or Bert Williams' routines in class or on stage, in Unearthing the mislaid, forgotten, &/or misunderstood women black face mimicking Eddie Cantor or Gloria Swanson, being writers, painters, mothers, cowgirls, & union leaders of our the rush of irony & control that are the foundation of iazz dance, pasts proved to be both a supportive experience & a challenge not was as startling as humbling. With Raymond Sawyer & Ed Mock, to let them down, not to do less than-at all costs not be less Paula Moss & I learned the wealth of our bodies, if we worked, woman than-our mothers, from Isis to Marie Laurencin, Zora if we opened up, if we made the dance our own.