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:

1. 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)?
2. 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)?
3. 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?
4. 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.