A Daughter's Geography [Paperback]

Ntozake Shange (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

About Atlanta
The Beach With Okra & Greens - On Their Honeymoon
A Black Night In Haiti, Palais National, Port-au-prince
Bocas: A Daughter's Geography
Crooked Woman - Okra Meets Greens In Strange Circumstances
Fiction, Non-fiction (okra's Intellect Address Greens' Mind)
From Okra To Greens - A Different Love Poem
From Okra To Greens: A Personal Invitation
Hijo De Las Americas
In The Blueness - Says Greens
It Hasnt Always Been This Way: 1. Mood Indigo
It Hasnt Always Been This Way: 2. Improvisation
It Hasnt Always Been This Way: 3. Take The A Train
Oh, I'm 10 Months Pregnant
Okra To Greens - An Aside On Amsterdam Avenue
Okra To Greens Again (special Delivery)
Okra To Greens: A Historical Perspective Of Sound, Downtown
Revelations (the Night Greens Went Off With Rutabaga)
Rise Up Fallen Fighters (okra Takes Up With A Rastafari Man)
Some Men
Synecdoche - Asbury Park In October
Tween Itaparica & Itapua
We Need A God Who Bleeds Now
You Are Sucha Fool I Haveta Love You
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Product Details

• Paperback: 74 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; First Edition edition (August 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031206327X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312063276
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #330,714 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ntozake Shange, poet, novelist, playwright, and performer, wrote the Broadway-produced and Obie Award-winning For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf. She has also written numerous works of fiction, including Sassafras, Cypress and Indigo, Betsy Brown, and Liliane.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poetry that matters, August 2, 2000

By 

Robert James (Culver City, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Daughter's Geography (Paperback)

Ntozake Shange is most famous for her theatrical dance piece "for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf." But this 1983 poetry collection shows her to be a powerful wordsmith as well: these poems evoke a childhood of intimate knowledge, an adulthood of anger and loss and the desire for change, and a lover who isn't about to take any more garbage from anybody. Shange's voice slips from a poetic tone to a street slang and back again smoothly and seamlessly. There are moments I will never forget in this collection: the opening trio of poems are a tribute to Duke Ellington, among others: when she says "it hasn't always been this way / ellington was not a street / robeson was no mere memory" I could feel the words strike me with the insistent lure of song referenced by its title: "Mood Indigo." As one of her lines says, "our doors opened like our daddy's arms," this collection will pull you in and make you feel the poet's world in a way few poets are capable of in this day of polite, obscure poetry.