Ntozake Shange:
A Vision of Authentic Artistic Leadership
by Pamela Booker
“…somebody told me worshipping others leads to mediocrity. So I stopped looking
for roots and heroes and heroines and I found my peers … poets.” 1
(from Lost in Language & Sound or how I found my way to the arts)
Just as I’d completed the most readable draft of my first novel a few years ago, I fell into a deeply irrational
fear for the manuscript’s worth and by extension my writerly merit. As a consequence, I made a decision
that I’ve so often “staged” over the years of my inconsistent, woefully under-published existence, and
retreated into academic study. Already drawn to cycles of obscurity with diminished, literary publication
options, I raised my aspirational bar by gaining admission into a Ph.D. program. Although I eventually grew
bored with arguments, intersectionalities, theories, and paradigms that, for me, were mostly redundant or
forced, I stayed for one year and of course, performed exceptionally. By the close of the spring term, I was
suffering from a neatly concealed emotional fallout that would eventually dump me at the roadside of my
tattered edges. The colors of my own rainbow had grown painfully sallow. Yet in responding to this call
that celebrates the visionary, artistic task-mastering of our most affecting “colored girl,” I am moved by the
realization that Ntozake Shange has remained a distinctive force throughout my generative, though often
uncertain academic and creative sustainability.
Unlike many of you readers and contributors, Zake and I were not personal friends, although I was part of
any number of introductions and conversations with other writers who were. I remember meeting her once
at a literary conference in Brooklyn, somewhere between the years of completing my undergraduate studies
in 1999 as a returning adult learner, which included a comparative study of her work during a semester
abroad at Oxford University and prior to applying to graduate programs. After a brief introduction by a
mutual friend, I revealed to Shange that I was an emerging playwright but “a late bloomer.” She looked me
hard in the eyes, squinted hers and bellowed, “Girl, we are all still blooming.” Then she sashayed away in a
halcyon pool of color generated by her tightly formed lime green linen suit and stiletto pumps to match.
More than a decade later at the Barnard College consortium that celebrated her work in 2013, I waited
patiently in line with others to thank her for having imparted such vividly memorable wisdom to my earlier,
less confident self. Though confined to a wheelchair by then, she still possessed a determined and regal
voice that affirmed her enduring legacy in the company of knowledge workers, artists and scholars, who’d
all been transformed by the ingredients that comprised Shange’s artistic potency. As I stood awkwardly
rubbing her arm, Shange gestured for me to move closer and whispered, “Sweetheart, was I nice to you
when we spoke?”
***
Patricia Hill Collins reasons on the subject of Black Feminist Epistemologies “that anyone who reflects
on his or her practical experience is an intellectual, a creator of knowledge.” 2 Collins’ assertion, much like
Shange’s question, encourages us to seek the necessary momentum to care for anything that appears so out
of our reach and indeed, may be astounding. When partnered to any of the performed or whispered truths
made by Ntozake Shange over her enduring half a century’s worth of “talking to the folks” — she always
african Voices
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