New Directions

Volume 11 | Issue 1 Article 9

10-1-1983

Book Review: Black Women Writers at WorkShaker, Why Don't You Sing?Jeanne-Marie A. Miller

Gregory S. Kearse

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Recommended CitationMiller, Jeanne-Marie A. and Kearse, Gregory S. (1983) "Book Review: Black Women Writers at Work Shaker, Why Don't You Sing?,"New Directions: Vol. 11: Iss. 1, Article 9.Available at: http://dh.howard.edu/newdirections/vol11/iss1/9

Books

BlackWomenWriters at

42 Work.Edited by Claudia Tate.The Continuum Publishing Company, New York,1983.213 pp., $14.95.

Reviewed by [eanne-Maiie A. Miller

From the earliest years of this na-tion, Blacks h~ve been a popularsubject for white American writ-ers, particularly of fiction and

poetry-James Fenimore Cooper, Her-man Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, HarrietBeecher Stowe, William Gilmore SimmsHenry Wadsworth Longfellow, John 'Greenleaf Whittier, and Walt Whitmanto name a few. '

In the theatrical arena, the minstrelshow, which caricatured Black slaves inthe entertainments that they providedon plantations, is considered to be theonly indigenous form of Americandrama. From the mid- to the late 19thcentury, it was perhaps the favored theat-rical entertainment of many Americans.

Since the 18th century, Black writers,too, have been publishing literary works,and when they write, they very oftenproduce a fuller portraiture of them-selves than has been the case with writ-ers outside their race. Their artistic con-sciousness developed despite a troubledenvironment of racial segregation andoppression, and they expressed theirinner feelings as well as their attitudetoward social conditions.

Although Black women have long beenamong this coterie of writers, too oftentheir work has been overlooked, or asAmiri Baraka has suggested in his intro-duction to Confirmation: An Anthologyof African American Women, thesewomen, unjustly, have had a "low profilein the world of literature." A study oftheir literary works, however, revealsthat many of them have made a uniqueand significant contribution to the

NEW OIRECTIONSJULY/OCTOBER 1983

American literary tradition, a contribu-tion shaped by their experiences both asBlacks and as women.

Since the 18th century, literature writtenby Black women has been continuous.As early as 1746, in Deerfield, Mas- .sachusetts, Lucy Terry, a slave, wrote apoem entitled "Bars Pight," in which shegives a poetic account of an Indian raid.The history of Black women in poetrymay have begun with this poem.

The best known Black female author of18th-century America was PhillisWheatley, an African-born slave, whosepoetry was read and celebrated in thiscountry and abroad. Educated and en-couraged by her owners, the Wheatleysof Massachusetts, she wrote religiousand lyric poetry in the style of her day.Her volume of poetry, Poems on VariousSubjects, Religious and Moral, was pub-lished in England in 1773.

In 19th-century America, almost acentury after Wheatley, Frances EllenWatkins Harper, a free Black womanborn in Baltimore, Maryland, made hermark as a literary artist. In addition towriting poetry and fiction, she was areformer who lectured on abolitiontemperance, Black education, and ;uf-frage. Her Christian humanism socialawareness, race loyalty, and em~athywith the sufferings of women are re-flected in her writings. Her novel, IolaLeroy, was published in 1892.

During the 20th century, the intellect,imagination, and energy that charac-terized the Black women writers of theprevious centuries encouraged moregifted women to express themselvesthrough literature. Even a partial list ofthese writers before the 1960s is impres-sive: Charlotte Forten Crimke, AngelinaWeld Crimke, Jessie Redmon FausetZora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen, 'Gwendolyn Bennett, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Anne Spencer, Georgia DouglasJohnson, Helene Johnson, May Miller,Ann Petry, Alice Childress, LorraineHansberry, Margaret Walker, and Gwen-dolyn Brooks.

Despite this talented group, however,even during the two 20th centuryperiods of great creativity on the part ofBlack writers-the New Negro Renais-sance, which spanned the 1920s, and theBlack Arts Movement, which reached itsapex during the late 1960s and early1970s-women writers remained on theperiphery and only a scant few receivedattention.

Recent books are beginning to makestrides in overcoming past neglect by

treating in full the works and biog-raphies of some of these women. In 1977,for example, Robert E. Hemenway'sZora Neale Hurston provided a lengthystudy of the life and art of this efferves-cent woman of the New Negro Renais-sance, and in 1981 Carolyn Wedin Syl-vander, in Tessie Redmon Fauset, BlackAmerican Writer, revealed Fauset as notonly a literary artist who deserves atten-tion but the literary editor at The Crisiswho successfully encouraged and nur-tured the talents of the young LangstonHughes and Countee Cullen.

Claudia Tate's Black Women Vliiters atWork, by providing material that givesvaluable insight into the lives and worksof 14 contemporary Black women liter-ary artists, is in the category of publica-tions that are helping to fill the gaps inAmerican literary history. Tate, an asso-ciate professor of English at HowardUniversity, accomplishes her taskthrough a series of well planned andcontrolled interviews.

The process used by literary critics isakin to that of other interpreters of art,that is, they move from the exterior of awork to the interior. The movement ofthe creative writer is in the reversedirection. In Black Women V\.1'itersatWork, one of the intriguing attempts byTate is to show the creative process atwork or how these women go about theirjobs of writing. The responses which attimes take into account the fi~~ linebetween life and art, are alwaysindividualized.

"Art is not living," poet Audre Lordeinsists. "It is the art of living. The artisthas the ability to take the living and useit in a certain way and produce art." ForToni Morrison, the award-winningnovelist, "Writing has to do with theimagination. It's being willing to open adoor or think the unthinkable, no matterhow silly it may appear."

In confirming the personal nature of~ome of her poetry, Ntozake Shange, whoIS also a playwright and a novelist,reveals something of how she creates:

"I see my self-consciousness in termsof battling with myself to let go ofsomething .... I had fought throughvery difficult emotional tasks inorder to allow myself to say: 'Okay,as weird as this is, this is truly howI feel. ... ' In other words, myself-consciousness has nothing reallyto do with other people. It has to dowith whether or not I'm going toconfront what I'm feeling."

A stockpile of literary material always

awaits fiction writer Kristin Hunter, andthis material, the most urgent comingfirst, finds form as a novel or a shortstory. For Maya Angelou, poet andautobiographer, writing is an integralpart of life:

"Writing is a part of my life, cooking isa part of my life. Malting love is apart of my life, walking down thestreet is a part of it. Writing demandsmore time, but it takes from all ofthese other activities. They all feedinto the writing."

Though these women writers articulatedifferently their responsibilities, mostagree on these points: learning one'scraft, becoming as good a writer as onecan, and telling as much of the truth asone can. Shange adds anotherresponsibility: that women writers, whodo see the world in such a way that they"care more about people than militarypower," make important the powers tofeel, nourish, and educate.

The audiences for whom these womenwrite vary. Morrison's is not an externalone but the people in the book she iswriting at the time. Hunter writes for asmany people as possible, whereas AlexisDeVeaux sees as her first duty "to writeso that other black people have anunderstanding of what I'm trying to sayabout my black life and possibly whatI'm saying about their black lives." Someare writing specifically for Black women.

Alice Walker, author of the PulitzerPrize-winning novel The Color Purple,discusses the focus of the writing ofBlack women. To her, these writers tendto be interested in the Black community,"in intimate relationships." Thisattitude differs somewhat from Blackmale writers. "We black women writersknow very clearly that our survivaldepends on trust," she continues.vwewill not or cannot have anything untilwe examine what we do to and with eachother."

Sherley Anne Williams, who is both acritic and a poet, concludes that Blackwomen writers are taking the will tosurvive outside the framework ofencounters with the white world.

"They've refashioned this will into aninstrument for understandingourselves among ourselves. In each oftheir works there is the white worldas backdrop, its oppression, but thefocus is on understanding the self,thefarnily, and the community. Thestrength originates here. I think thatthis has been generally true of blackwomen writers over the years."

Tate has edited Black Women VWiters atWork with such care that not only do thewords of each author breathe with lifebut each voice has its particular coloringand through it all shines the distinctpersonality of the writer. The writers-Maya Angelou, Toni Cade Bambara,Gwendolyn Brooks, Alexis DeVeaux,Nikki Giovanni, Kristin Hunter, GayleTones, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison,Sonia Sanchez, Ntozake Shange, AliceWalker, Margaret Walker, and SherleyAnne Williams - speak out on issuesthat are close to their hearts. When theydiscuss the topics of gender and race,there are no real conflicts but rather anexploration of the differences amongthem.

These women write because they must,their lives and their art are inextricablybound. As Blacks and as women inAmerica, they have been given a specialplace, and it is from this vantage point,as writers and as human beings, thatthey look at life and out of it createliterature, the pains and joys, thestruggles and survival, all manifesting inpoetry, fiction, and drama. 0

[eanne-Morie Miller, Ph.D., is assistant foracademic planning, Office of the Vice Presidentfor Academic Affairs, Howard University.

Shaker,Why Don'tYou Sing?By Maya Angelou

Random House, New York, 198344 pp., $7.95

Reviewed by Gregory S. Kearse

This gutsy little book won't winany major literary awards. Itwas not written for that pur-pose. But this, the fourth col-

lection of poetry by the author of I KnowWhy The Caged Bird Sings, will get theattention it deserves and more readers inan ever-growing camp of Angeloudevotees.As is reflected in much of the fiction andpoetry in contemporary letters, Shaker,Why Don't You Sing! is clearly personal,though not quite autobiographical. Thethemes covered -love, longing, pain andfortune-are sufficiently universal totranscend mere biography. Typical ofAngelou, however, the poems are lyrical,revealing, informative and playful. Al-most chatty.

The title poem is powerful in its inno-cent sensuality. Its images are compactas is true for all good poetry, and evokelongings that we have all shared:"Evicted from sleep's mute palace,!I waitin silence/for the bridal croon.ryour legsrubbing insistent!rhythm against my thighs ..." The lastline nicely sums up the search in termswe can all understand: "Yet darknessbrings no syncopated promise.!I restsomewhere between the unsung notes ofnight./Shaker, why don't you sing?"

43

Less weighty but no less moving is theplayful "Impeccable Conception."

I met a Lady Poetwho took for inspirationcolored birds, and whispered words,a lover's hesitation.A falling leaf could stir hex.A wilting, dying rosewould make her write, both day and

night,the most rewarding prose.She'd find a hidden meaningin every pair of pants,then hurry home to be aloneand write about romance.

This totem to the creative process of awoman poet is complex in its elegantsimplicity, the raison d'etre of rewardingpoetry. But poetry in the tradition ofFrost or Pound or Eliot reflects the in-formed and complex self in expressionwhere even the punctuation serves tofurther the image.Civil rights activist, composer, actress,director, filmmaker, poet, singer, pro-ducer-Maya Angelou has the back-ground to provide the rich texture thather poetry demands. Hence, beneath thesimplicity of the product lies the breadthof a multi-colored canvas, a canvas that

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44

reveals a catholic depth hidden by theconstraints of the poetic idiom.

Those of us who have heard her read un-derstand her magnificent and enterpris-ing stage presence. Hers is an act of giv-ing rather than receiving. And in eachperformance we get a little closer, a mi-croscopic glimpse of all the elementsthat go into the "impeccable conception"of the poem.

As the northern coordinator for theSouthern Christian Leadership Confer-ence from 1960-61 at the invitation of Dr.Martin Luther King, Angelou was politi-cally active at a time when the allianceof art and politics was beginning to benourished in Black America. It was dur-ing this time that she met and married aSouth African nationalist and went tolive in Egypt and then Ghana. She re-turned to the United States in 1966where she acted in Jean Anouilh'sMedea in Hollywood. She also wrote andproduced a lO-part PBS series on Africantraditions in American life. Angelou hadnever considered writing about herselfuntil a dinner conversation with JamesBaldwin. Soon after, she found herselfwriting the story of her childhood, whichwas to become the award-winning, IKnow Why The Caged Bird Sings. Therest is history.

After Random House published CagedBird in 1970, three more volumes ofautobiography followed: Gather 'Ib-gether In My Name (1974), Singing' andSwinging' and Cettin' Merry LikeChristmas (1976) and The Heart of aWoman (1981).

"I speak to the Black experience," sheonce explained, "but I am always talkingabout the human condition -aboutwhat we can endure, dream, fail at andstill survive." Marguerite Johnson (MayaAngelou) will survive because her writ-ing will. And that's the real prize. D

The reviewer is an editor with the Howard UniversityPress.

NEW DIRECTIONS JULY/OCTOBER 1983

Gallery

Phyllis Cunningham:,Rhythms of Vision

Using a basic visual vocabulary of cir-cles, triangles and squares, Phyllis Cun-ningham creates rhythmic patterns oncanvas.

The rhytmic feeling she communicatesthrough her repetition of these geometricshapes has been inspired by the brilliantoverlapping patterns found in the tra-ditional clothing of Senegalese women,by the counterpoints of music and by theprecision of mathematics.