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.

Celebrate Women’s History Month @ SCC Libraries

Check out the Women’s History display at the SCC Library (Central Campus). The following books are on display:

The Diana I Knew by Mary Robertson (call number: DA591 .A45 D5358 1998)

A History of the Wife by Marilyn Yalom (call number: HQ1206 .Y35 2002)

Beyond the Myth: The Story of Joan of Arc by Polly Schoyer Brooks (call number: DC103.5 .B76 1999)

March’s Booklist @ SCC Library

If you liked “Having Our Say: the Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years” by Sarah and Elizabeth Delany try…..

The Delany Sisters’ Book of Everyday Wisdom

Sarah Delany

E185.96 .D368 1994

 Peacework: Oral Histories of Women Peace Activists

Judith Adams

JX1965. A33 1990

 Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and the Family from Slavery to the Present

Jacqueline Jones

HD6057.5 .U5 J66 1986

 Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese

HQ1438.A13 F69 1988

 In the Company of Educated Women:  a History of Women and Higher Education in America

Barbara Solomon

LC1752.S65 1985

 The Day the Women got the Vote: a Photo History of the Women’s Rights Movement

George Sullivan

HQ1236.5 .U6 S85 1994

 Down from the Mountaintop: Black Women’s Novels in the Wake of the Civil Rights Movement, 1966-1989

Melissa Walker

PS374.N4 W35 1991

 Half Sisters of History: Southern Women and the American Past

Catherine Clinton

HQ1438. S63 H35 1994

 The Southern Lady: from Pedestal to Politics, 1830-1930

Anne Scott

HQ1418. S38 1995

 Doers of the Word: African-American Women Speakers and Writers in the North (1830-1880)

Carla Peterson

PS153.N5 P443 1995

 African American Women and the Vote, 1837-1965

Ann Gordon

JK1924. A47 1997

Women History Month

Celebrate Women History Month at the SCC Library

We are Our Mother’s Daughter

Cokie Roberts

HQ1421. R63 1998

A Woman’s Place is in the Kitchen: the Evolution of Women Chefs

Ann Cooper

TX649. A1 C66 1998

Women at the Front: Hospital Workers in Civil War America

Jane Schultz

E621 .S35 2004

Founding Mothers: the Women who Raised Our Nation

Cokie Roberts

E176 .R63 2004

Women’s History as Scientist

Leigh Whaley

Q130. W46 2003

A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove: a History of American Women Told Through Food, Recipes, and Remembrances

Laura Schenone

TX645 .S34 2003

Women and Music in America Since 1900

Kristine Burns

ML82. W625 2002 V.1

 

Women of the West

Cathy Luchetti

HQ1438. W45 L8 1994

Next Book Discussion – March 17th

Date:     March 17th 2008

Time:    12:30 pm

Location:   The Cuppa Cabeana (Library Building)

Book:      Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years  

                  by Sara and Elizabeth Delany 

The Delany sisters speak their mind about love and life. Readers are taken on a journey through the Post-Reconstruction of the South to the Civil Rights Movement.