Ntozake’s Offering: Fierce Love
Back when such things were more possible than they are now, I loved to travel to my favorite local nonprofit, which provides sliding-scale art, writing, and wellness classes for women across my city. My history with Women’s Wisdom Art grew to include many months as a participant, a full year as a staff member, and continued work as a volunteer and supporter. I also remained as a participant in classes taught by women I had grown to love, the yoga teacher, for one, and the poetry teacher, Laura Ann Walton, who founded the organization three decades ago.
In the bright studio of Women’s Wisdom Art, the women who attended the poetry class became confidants of the kind that rise from the trust and depth of creating and sharing art in community. One late winter day, Laura Ann introduced us to the poet who would inspire our writing session, and I was drawn in by her photograph and her story. Ntozake (en-toh-zah-ke) Shange, I learned, had renamed herself. In Zulu, Ntozake means “she who comes with her own things” and Shange means “who walks like a lion.” Ntozake’s poetry should not be overlooked. She is most known for her play for Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow is Enuf. Our teacher read us the last half of “A Layin’ on of Hands” from the play. Here’s the portion she shared:
. . . I sat up one nite walkin a boardin house
screamin/cryin/the ghost of another woman
who waz missin what I was missin
I wanted to jump up outta my bones
& be done with myself
leave me alone
& go on in the wind
it waz too much
I fell into a numbness
til the only tree I cd see
took me up in her branches
held me in the breeze
made me dawn dew…
…i waz cold/i waz burnin up/a child
& endlessly weavin garments for the moon
wit my tears
I found god in myself
& I loved her/ I loved her fiercely
As I listened to Laura Ann’s practiced rhythms and enunciation, precise and respectful, Ntozake’s words traveled from the page in front of me and wheeled in through my navel and up into the very lungs of me, continuing toward my shoulders and back down my spine to my heart. After a couple deep breaths, I raised my eyes to catch Laura Ann’s and asked if she would please read the poem again. She did. The poem’s vision and vernacular upended me. I tried to veil my tears, feeling fully inhabited by a woman who was no longer alive. Ntozake Shange died in 2018. With her poem as our prompt, we would fashion our own. An urgency erupted in me. I must reply to her. I couldn’t wait to begin.
Laura Ann invited us to incorporate our own natural vernaculars into our poems as Ntozake had. That I could do. Many years of living in the South had given me the privilege of learning to loosen my tongue when and if I wanted to say things the way they felt deep inside. The first line flowed from my pen like holy oil.
I been there, Ntozake.
You scooped me into the clutch of that tree
that raised you from the dead when you wanted to be done.
I been there, for real.
I know those numb arms,
the tired reachin for the thread that might unravel the madness that
weaves every wonder into a grievance cut from the lost cloth of the ancients.
It don’t get no better sometimes for days in Land of the Shadows.
It don’t bleach bright like the cow skulls painted by O’Keefe.
When the gloom sets in ain’t nothin that rights the wrongs of past doins,
‘cept today when you, En-Toh-Zah-Ke, lifted me
and wrapped me in a spectacle of grace
for survivin this world.
Thank you, Ntozake Shange, for word-weaving your way into my heart, for inspiring my receptivity and creation action. I honor you, Ntozake, for claiming your name and speaking your truth in beauty. And power.
