Discussion Questions – “For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf”
Book Summary:
The book was inspired by Shange’s play titled For Colored Girls Who have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf. Shange’s work was only the second by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway in 1975. For Colored Girls is a mixture of poetry, music, and dance. The piece consists of seven women who perform twenty poems examining gender, abuse, love, and self-esteem.
Discussion Questions:
- In “graduation nite”, the speaker loses her virginity in a Buick the same night as her high school graduation. How does her ecstatic embrace of adulthood in lines “we waz grown we waz finally grown” hint at both her innocence and its loss (page 23)?
- How does the end of an affair narrated by the lady in red in “no assistance”, capture the pathos of a romantic break-up: “this note is atached to a plant/i’ve been watering since the day i met you/ you may water it/ yr damn self” (page 28)?
- How does the author’s juxtaposition of a poem about rape, “lantent rapist” (page 31-35), with a poem about abortion, “abortion cycle #1” (page 36-37), highlight the sexual vulnerabilities and dangers faced by many of her female speakers?
- In the poem, “pyramid”, about three girlfriends and the one man they all desire – “we all saw him at the same time/& he saw us” -how would you characterize the author’s depiction of female friendship (pages 53-56)? How does the male romantic interest in “pyramid” compare with the author’s other depictions of boys and men in For Colored Girls?
“For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf: A Chorepoem.” 2010. Book & Authors Gale. Web. 19 Mar. 2011.
SCC Book Corner 
#1 – It seemed like a common mistake that young people make regarding graduation and sex. Somehow magically after completing the person is “grown”. It is an ignorant innocence of what actually happens after this episode in one’s life. It is in some way, a culmination of a longing since adolescence to “have a place”, to belong, or to be admired/loved. Oddly, the harsh reality is no matter what we do, that desire never leaves.
#2 It seems to show the various stages that a vested lover goes through when realizing they were in a relationship with someone that never, or at least ceased to share that vested interest. She first accounted all that she did to nurture the romance. The realization sits in that all that was done was unreciprocated, with this comes a feeling of foolishness or shame. To regain composure one pretends it was all a calculated plan, a ploy that total control was maintained at all times. Yet, the anger betrays this guise as she says, “water it/ yr damn self”.
#3 The obvious physical “scar” of a baby points to the loss of innocence and a mental “scar” by a betrayal of virtues. To abort carries just as much of a burden physically and mentally as one is looked down upon for having the nerve to do such a deed in attempt to avoid the same judgmental eyes that peer when with child. Being raped by a “friend” brings the physical scars, along with the mental anguish for trusting the person, and because of that not being believed because it wasn’t a “stranger”. In either case would think there would be a lot of dwelling in the past asking “what if”.
4. I would characterize it as an unwritten friendly competition to have the romance they each wished to have. it seems like a respectful competition as they talked about what could have been yet spurning his advances. I would also say opportunistic in the sense that all bets were off when he said it was over. Ironically you would think that his betrayal of one would indicate that another would suffer the same fate. Maybe it was an arrogant competition to say I can keep him when you couldn’t, or I deserved him that led one to excuse his obvious indiscretion for a chance at her dreams. All the men seemed the same, pretty wrapping that disguised the danger or complexity inside.