World-Renowned African-American Poet Ntozake Shange to Give Poetry Concert at Smith

Ntozake Shange will perform her dynamic poetry with internationally acclaimed percussionist Kahil-El-Zabar of the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble at 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 23, in John M. Green Hall. This rare performance is free, open to the public and wheelchair-accessible.

Shange is the author of "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Not Enuf," a choreo-poem which changed the face of American theater forever with a spectrum of revelatory voices exploring a black woman's experience: "I wuz cold/ I wuz burnin up/ a child and endlessly weaving garments/for the moon with my tears/I found god in myself/ and I loved her/ I loved her fiercely."

Her volumes of poetry include "Nappy Edges," "A Daughter's Geography," "Ridin' the Moon in Texas," "From Okra to Greens," and "The Love Space Demands: A Continuing Saga."

Shange has written two novels: "Sassafras, Cypress, and Indigo" and "Betsey Brown."

Her work provides a sense of immediate contact with a volatile and expressive set of emotions. In both poetry and prose, Shange makes us creatively rethink the dangers that face our contemporary world.

Of Shange the Houston Chronicle has written, "[She] is a poet who knows how to loosen the strictures, to give form to the warm exudates of the black self and the pain and joy of the black heritage, and to chart the rushing waters of the old and new rivers confluent at the mouth of the present. Shange's poetry is a colorful new spectrum of warm, sensuous voices."

Shange's columns also appear regularly in Philadelphia's Real News, and her articles and poetry may be found in Uncut Funk, Callaloo, Muleteeth, and Essence.

This reading is the last in the 1998-99 Poetry Center Series at Smith College. It is co-sponsored by the Poetry Center and the Black Students' Alliance at Smith.