Comparing Poetry And Myth In Otozake Shange's Poem

Ntozake Shange is a black female artist and feminist. According to Neal A. Luster’s introduction in At the Heart of Shange’s Feminism: An Interview, she has a bachelor’s degree in American Studies from Barnard College and a master’s degree in American Studies from the University of Southern California. As an artist, she has written poetry collections, novels, novellas, critical essays, plays, and “choreopoems,” a genre she developed herself (Luster, “At the Heart”). A true hybrid form, the choreopoem mixes poetry, monologue, movement, music, and dance in a rhythmic piece of American theater that is part play, part spoken-word, and part music and dance performance. Shange is probably best known for her 1974 choreopoem titled for colored girls

Lorde’s piece, a biomythography, challenges traditional notions of biography and myth in order to portray the power of the events in her life. For instance, Lored devotes many pages describing the visceral presence of a woman she meets at a party, Afrekete, writing, “[Afrekete’s] chocolate skin and deep, sculptured mouth reminded me of a Benin bronze” (244). However, this strong presence is juxtaposed with abrupt absence, as evident when Lorde writes, “We had come together like elements erupting into an electric storm [ . . . ] Then we parted” (253). This frames Afrekete as a mythical woman, someone with great influence but little presence, challenging societal notions of power regarding women in a relatively short portion of the narrative. This is achieved through the use of a mix of genres of writing that creates a narrative that is both reality and legend. As revealed above, Shange’s choreopoem provides a key example of another hybrid form that challenges normative perceptions of literature as well as power structures. However, it does so in a visual way, adding another dimension that Lorde’s piece did not have. Whether interpreting the stage directions, or watching a video, the audience is provided with many avenues of engaging with the text, so that Shange’s messages arguably have greater reach in their ability to expose oppressive mechanisms of