For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuf

Because the choreopoem is a performance piece, it features as much storytelling and tone setting in the director’s notes as in the poems themselves. From the outset, Shange provides lighting and sound directions that help set the tone for each piece and movement directions that evoke the cohesive flow of the pieces. Like a ballet, the women move on and off the stage in an ever-shifting combination of scenes, poems, and monologues. The choreopoem begins in darkness, which shifts to dim blue lights and harsh music. The women “run onto the stage from each of the seven exits. They all freeze in postures of distress” (3). The swiftness, the darkness, and the harshness all combine to set a somber and urgent tone. From the outset, words, sound, and visuals work together in harmony to create a haunting atmosphere in “dark phrases.”

Shange’s poem depicts a Black girl dancing to a tuneless, lyric-less song. Still, she must dance with grace because her movements “don’t tell nobody don’t tell a soul // she’s dancin on beer cans & shingles” (3). The beer cans and shingles represent dirt and grime, or items that would dash against a dancer’s feet and make her tumble. In this image, they represent the difficulties and challenges that Black women and girls face every day: poverty and addiction. Shange’s speaker calls for someone to unveil those hardships, to reveal the “unseen performances” (4). The speaker questions whether or not Black women Black girls are ghosts, figments of the imagination, or the walking dead. She begs:

somebody/ anybody

sing a black girl’s song

bring her out

to know herself

to know you

but sing her rhythms (4).

These four lines highlight one of the choreopoem’s major themes and the author’s main message. Shange declares from the beginning that for colored girls is her attempt to give voice to Black women and girls, to tell their stories, and to help them to reclaim their voices.

The speaker in “dark phrases” refers to a lifeless presence. Still, the transition from this poem to “graduation nite” represents a rebirth, sending the women back to childhood. Shange uses music again to shift the tone. The women sing playground songs, which lightens the mood in preparation for the light-hearted, youthful energy of both “graduation nite” and “i love somebody more than.” Both poems mark the transition from girlhood to womanhood.

“graduation nite” is a light-hearted celebration of being on the brink of adulthood. The speaker details a careful mixture of childhood memory and carelessness with her sense of burgeoning womanhood. The teens ride around in cars, racing each other to a house party. The speaker says the night’s excitement comes from everyone in her city graduating on the same day (from high school, from college, from trade school), and she’s exhilarated that “all us movin from mama to whatever was out there” (7). Later, she exclaims, “WE WAZ GROWN WE WAZ FINALLY GROWN” (9), punctuating the triumph of youth. At the same time, the speaker talks about feeling self-conscious about people thinking she was a virgin, so she worked hard at learning to dance like “[her] hips waz inta some business” (9). Her striving to seem like an adult when she’s not yet there further highlights the liminality of graduation night. By the end of the night, she has given away her virginity to one of her childhood friends, marking one of many rites of passage into adulthood.

In “now i love somebody more than,” the speaker shares a different perspective on newfound freedom and young love. Her first love is Afro-Latin music and culture. Even though she is Black, she can pass for Puerto Rican, so she learns to dance as well as “jibarita herself” (12); “jibarita” is a term for a girl from Puerto Rico. She describes being enthralled by the music, the dancing, the culture, and “bein a mute cute colored puerto rican” (12). Then, Willie Colón, the performer she adores, cancels his performance and “alla my ni**ah temper came outta control” (12). This emotional shift indicates an identity shift. Shange shows this identity shift via the speaker’s changing musical preferences. She “[discovers] archie shepp & subtle blues” (12) and repeatedly listens to his album The Magic of Juju. Shepp is a jazz saxophonist and playwright; The Magic of Juju heavily features African horn and jazz rhythms that are very similar to the music of her first loves: mambo, bomba, and merengue. Shepp and Imamu Amear Baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones, later Amiri Baraka) signify a shift in the speaker’s cultural consciousness. Both artists were politically active and vocal about racial injustice.

The poem ends with the chant “te amo mas que,” which translates to “I love you more than.” Her newfound love for herself and her African-ness replaces her love for Afro-Latin culture, and Archie Shepp replaces Willie Colón. The underlying rhythms and compositions are the same between African American jazz played by Archie Shepp and Afro-Latin Jazz played by Willie Colón. Shange’s inclusion of these two seemingly distinct artists shows that people of the African Diaspora have more in common than they do not. Here, Shange expands her working definition of Black to include not only African Americans but also members of the African Diaspora in the Caribbean and Latin America.

“no assistance” continues exploring Black women’s experiences with young love. The speaker leaves a frustrated note on a plant she’s returning to a lover who didn’t love her as much as she loved him. The tone is assertive, clear, and resolved. This tonal shift suggests a shift in the arc of girlhood to womanhood. Crossing the threshold of a broken heart and returning to one’s power is another rite of passage into adulthood.

“i’m a poet who” is a celebration of the choreopoem itself. The poem also serves as Shange’s introduction to the audience. She explains to them she is as much a dancer and a storyteller as she is a poet: “i don’t wanna write // in english or spanish // i wanna sing make you dance” (14). In the end, the women dance to Willie Colón’s music and recite “we gotta dance to keep from cryin // we gotta dance to keep from dyin” (15). These lines highlight Shange’s intention to create art that centers dance because she sees dance as healing and another form of storytelling. Shange declares she wants to create a rhythm with her work that does what her favorite music does for her: make the audience “[forget] all about words” and “[whip] through space” (15), meaning to create a sense of timelessness and weightlessness—the opposite of ruminating over heavy emotions. In the end, the women repeat the line “come to share our worlds with you” (16), which also references Shange’s desire to create a work that takes the audience inside the life of a Black woman, giving life and words to her stories.

The choreopoem turns somber again; both the lighting and sound work together to evoke a slap across the face. Shange’s notes direct the women on stage to react accordingly. This moment serves as the transition to the much more serious “latent rapists” and “abortion cycle #1.” Before “latent rapists” begins, the lady in orange “runs out the left volm.” The “volm” is an area of the theatre that borders both the audience seating and the stage, though sometimes this word refers to the aisles among the audience seating. The choreopoem was written to be performed in community arts spaces where the stage is likely on the same plane as the audience seating, and the borders between performance space and audience seating are limited. If the venue uses an elevated stage, performers still require easy access to the audience space. Shange’s use of the volm, or audience space, allows the performers more movement and fluidity. Performers entering audience space can invite participation, which supports Shange’s intention to create a work that universally speaks to Black women and sparks collective healing in those who witness the live show.

The women’s entrances and exits have a fluid quality that gives readers a sense of the movement they can only see at a live performance. The women often run on or off stage to enter and exit, as they do at the end of “i’m a poet who.” Shange also makes use of the opposing entry and exit points. At the end of “one,” the lady in red exits into the stage left volm, and the lady in blue enters from upstage right. These opposing entry points allow the choreopoem to continue piece after piece uninterrupted. Because the performance layout uses so many opposing angles, Shange’s performers can enter and exit from nearly any direction, which heightens the choreopoem’s sense of fluidity. Because performers use their bodies to tell the stories, the set design is virtually non-existent. Instead, music, lighting, and movement help form seamless transitions. The result for viewers and readers is a piece of theater made up of many voices, pieces, and transitions that meld into one cohesive stream-of-consciousness work of art.

The ladies in blue, red, and purple perform the piece “latent rapists.” These three colors that the women wear evoke the bruising that comes from domestic violence. “latent rapists” is a commentary on rape culture. To hear women speak aloud about a taboo topic in somber tones, with the sometimes graphic language challenges the audience’s notions about rape and helps create empathy. As the women state, Shange wants the audience to know that “the nature of rape has changed” (20). She makes it clear that these men aren’t monsters or strangers; instead, the rapists are “men who know us” (19), men who “we see [...] at the coffeehouse // wit someone else we know” (21). Shange’s speakers describe the images of homemade “elaborate mediterranean dinners” and conversations about art with a man the woman may have dated a few times and invited over. The next moment, the woman might be forced to sexually submit to the man and his friends. By casting light on the everyday situations (date rape, in this case) that turn into the “scars” that women bear, alongside the doubts from friends and authorities that women have to contend with in the aftermath, Shange creates a bleak picture of an aspect of women’s reality that transcends ethnicity, culture, and time.

With another sharp flash of the lights, the women react to another imaginary slap, signaling to the audience that the sensitive topics will continue. Shange follows “latent rapists” with “abortion cycle #1,” likely to allude to the idea that rape is not only about emotional and mental scarring but also the long-lasting physical effects that further complicate a woman’s mental state. Shange employs a stream-of-consciousness monologue as a woman describes her inner nightmares, the images she sees of death, and the horror of losing the life she’s carrying inside her: “Bones shattered like soft ice cream cones” and “metal horses gnawing [her] womb” are nightmare images that the audience won’t forget. Shange uses these jarring images directly following a poem about rape to help readers draw conclusions about why a woman might keep an abortion a secret. The poem states that she didn’t want anybody to know “once [she] waz pregnant & shamed of [her]self” (23). Together, “latent rapists” and “abortion cycle #1” represent unpleasant, violent experiences that can force women out of girlhood and into adulthood.

In “sechita,” Shange challenges the audience to reconsider their preconceived notions about exotic dancers and Black women’s sensuality and sexuality. Sechita wears “blk diamond stockings darned with yellow threads” (24). The sharp contrast between the colors resembles the sharp contrast between Sechita’s quiet, orderly yet dingy dressing room and the carnival’s loud, chaotic environment. While the carnival visits Natchez, Mississippi, Sechita feels caked with “the heavy dust of the delta” (24). As Sechita adorns herself, the speaker compares her to a creativity goddess because she transforms and transcends her environment by weaponizing beauty. The mirror distorts her self-image, much like the world around Black women doesn’t render them properly, but Sechita “had learned to make allowances for the distortions,” meaning she knew the mirror didn’t show her a true reflection. When Sechita goes onstage, she makes her face “immobile/ [...] like nefertiti/ approachin her own tomb” (25). Making her face unreadable and noble before walking out in front of a lecherous, unpredictable crowd is another metaphor for the Black woman’s experience in urban cities and mirrors the poem “i used to live in the world,” in which a woman reflects how she learned to navigate the city without showing kindness for fear that someone will violate her safety.

Sechita’s name derives from Seshat, the ancient Egyptian deity associated with creativity, scholarship, and libraries who catalogs the writings collected by her male counterpart, Djehuty. In Shange’s re-imagining, Sechita’s imagery evokes real-life queen Nefertiti and any number of goddesses who represent wealth, sensuality, and sexuality. In the most literal sense, Shange presents a woman who chooses to dance on stage as an act of self-empowerment. The audience throws gold pieces, not dollar bills, and the gold pieces become stars between Sechita’s toes. By placing Sechita in a grimy environment where both sexual and racial power dynamics are in full effect, Shange plays on the audience’s preconceived notions about carnivals, dirty places, exotic dancers, and Mississippi. The ending, however, subverts those expectations and raises Sechita and the Black women she represents above those earthly concerns. There are ancient sects that saw the art of the erotic as sacred and healing. As Sechita embodies one of those goddesses of sensuality and sexuality, the crowd becomes her devotees, paying homage to her sexual and sensual power.

“toussaint” is an allegory for falling in love with revolution and self-determination at a young age, as symbolized by Toussaint L’Ouverture, one of the leaders of the Haitian Revolution. The speaker says, “TOUSSAINT L’OUVERTURE // waz the beginnin uv reality for me” (26). Ironically, the revolutionary is long dead, but he becomes the speaker’s imaginary friend. Taken literally, Shange’s language suggests the common ideology that a Black woman’s liberation begins with her ability to imagine something different from her current reality. For the speaker, Toussaint L’Ouverture and the promises of freedom became real because they stand in stark contrast to her oppressive reality.

“toussaint” takes place in 1955, which the speaker says, “waz not a good year for lil blk girls” (27). The year before, in 1954, the United States Supreme Court issued the Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka decision that Black educational institutions were not equal to white ones and that schools must integrate to ensure all children receive a quality education. The decision rocked the nation, as children were forced to leave their communities and enter often hostile white communities, while Southern White segregationists launched a “massive resistance” campaign against Black communities.

Inspired by Toussaint and the lure of freedom in Haiti, a land where the Black people “dont take no stuff from no white folks” (30), she decides to run away from her “integrated home // integrated street // integrated school” (27). While she walks, a real boy named Toussaint Jones appears in the girl’s path. He immediately usurps imaginary Toussaint L’Ouverture with his similarly bold and brave demeanor. When she tells him all about Toussaint L’Ouverture, he responds, “i dont take no stuff from no white folks // ya dont see none round heah do ya?” (30). If Toussaint L’Ouverture was the beginning of reality, then Toussaint Jones stands as a symbol of her imagination made real. Now that she is awakened to the possibilities for freedom, she’s changed forever. Still, all of her childhood stretches out in front of her, and Toussaint’s invitation to go down to the docks and look at the boats inspires her to go boldly forward. While the weight of integration, politics, and being a little Black girl threatened to spur her into adulthood, running around with Toussaint returns her to childhood. Both Toussaints symbolize the freedom and courage she needs to continue facing the topsy-turvy world of St. Louis in 1955 and beyond.

“one” presents a woman in control of her image, her sexuality, and her body. She pushes that control to the limit by using her sexuality to wield power over the men she takes home. After each sexual encounter, she takes a bath and transforms:

ordinary

brown braided woman

With big legs & full lips

Reglar (34).

With this transformation, the audience sees that everything the woman presented was a facade, an illusion to lure her prey. Now, she shocks and humiliates him by putting him out before he could have the chance to leave before dawn and jilt her as he intended. After the man leaves, the woman gathers the adornments, her tools of illusion, laughs “gayly or vengeful” (35), writes about the man in her diary, and cries herself to sleep. Shange shows that what the nameless woman gets from these exploits is neither fulfilling nor representative of her actual character.

The speaker hints that there might be a man, an uncommitted partner who is never home. The title “one,” together with the revenge catalog, suggests that the woman’s behavior began with one man who may have broken her heart and she takes revenge via her sexuality. The woman represents a femme fatale archetype or the negative Jezebel archetype that paints Black women as soulless, sexually promiscuous creatures. Shange provides an alternate perspective on the racist trope, subverting the audience’s expectations by focusing on the woman’s interiority. By focusing on what the nameless woman feels, sees, and understands about her life, Shange presents another figure that elicits empathy and understanding for the Black woman’s experience. Because the woman is nameless, Shange forces the audience to focus on the woman’s character and emotions. This way, the audience can associate her with any woman they may have known, seen, or judged based on similarities to the Jezebel trope.

The refrain from “i used to live in the world” emphasizes that Harlem isn’t the world. Having moved from California, the speaker laments that her universe is now six blocks. The use of the word universe is intentional, as everything exists in those small, dirty, angry blocks. It also emphasizes the woman’s feelings of confinement:

i usedta live in the world

really be in the world

free & sweet talkin

good mornin & thank-you & nice day

uh huh

i cant now

i cant be nice to nobody

nice is such a rip-off

reglar beauty & a smile in the street

is just a set-up (38-39).

The speaker expresses fears for her personal safety and discusses how women can’t afford to be beautiful, sweet, and soft in such a harsh environment and still maintain personal safety. This poem declares that the city’s ugliness crushes both the innocence of girlhood and the softness and the sweetness of Black women. By raising this issue, Shange directly responds to the trope of the angry Black woman, suggesting that Black women aren’t angry, but they have to appear that way to survive. This woman’s message forces the audience to grapple with what they’ve been told about Black women and girls again.

In “pyramid” Shange shows the audience that women can be vulnerable again via sisterhood. A man enters three women’s lives, and his actions would ordinarily threaten to drive them apart. Instead, they stand in love and solidarity together. A pyramid is a shape with a solid base that can evenly distribute a lot of weight. In the case of ancient structures, they last thousands of years. By naming this poem after the geometric shape, Shange provides a metaphor where the women’s sisterhood is like a pyramid, subverting the audience’s expectations that this love triangle (or quadrangle) will end their relationship. Instead, the women cry together and lean into the strength of their love for each other—a picture that stands in stark contrast to the harsh world of the previous poem. Throughout the remainder of the choreopoem, Shange provides more examples of Black women providing one another with the softness and love they don’t receive in other places.

Consisting of four poetic monologues, “no more love poems” reflects four different stages of a woman reckoning with heartbreak. In the first one, the speaker says, “this is a requiem for myself/ cuz i have died in a real way” (43). A requiem is a mass for the dead or a song that one plays at such a mass. Shange’s vast musical knowledge is at play here; her speaker invites the audience to witness a funeral for the brokenhearted. Yet, the funeral will end in a rebirth. Each of the four poems features a tonal shift that mimics the stages of grief, from the woeful and angry first entry to a begging and more maudlin tone in the second entry, “no more love poems #2.” The speaker offers the listener her love and begs, “will you take it from me this one time/ please this is for you [...] i want you to love me/ let me love you” (44). This entry represents the bargaining stage. In the third entry, “no more love poems #3,” the speaker begins to accept the situation, even though she doesn’t like it yet. This poem represents the anger stage. In the final poem, “no more love poems #4,” the speaker becomes self-empowered. She is assertive and hopeful. She knows her worth and refuses to beg for less or pretend she isn’t allowed to express herself. The requiem ends with a rousing chant, song, and dance, which becomes a source of healing. In the final image of the piece, the women are “tired but full of life and togetherness” (49). The women have moved beyond acceptance and into a rebirth or a return to a new normal.

These entries, like all the other monologues in the choreopoem, feature women speaking for themselves about their intimate experiences, placing for colored girls alongside Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God in the Black women’s literary canon. Throughout the entries, Shange’s speakers address some of the choreopoem’s major themes. The women grapple with other people’s preconceived notions about Black women directly. In “no more love poems #2,” the speaker shares that she tried to hide her pain because “[she] cdnt stand bein sorry & colored at the same time// it’s so redundant in the modern world” (43). She rejects appearing “sorry and colored at the same time” (43), which translates to her renouncing the pervading image that Black women are struggling, unhappy, angry, and pitiable. Still, Shange’s speaker reveals that rejecting that stereotype silenced an aspect of her humanity. Expressing emotional pain and turmoil is human, even though it is often negatively and more frequently associated with the plight of Black Americans. Shange’s depicting women struggling to find balance between themselves and how the world sees them creates a resonant authenticity with her Black audiences.

Part monologue and part list poem, “somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff” evokes more hope and self-empowerment via a woman verbally reclaiming everything that makes her unique, powerful, and worthy of love. Throughout the poem, she speaks both to the audience and the unseen thief who unwittingly stole from her: “the one running wit it // dont know he got it/ [...] my stuff is the anonymous ripped off treasure of the year” (51). This line describing her stuff as anonymous is a callback to the opening poem “dark phrases” and references how historians often omit Black women’s contributions to world culture, art, and historical events from official narratives. The word treasure implies discovery, while anonymous implies the discoverer didn’t know or didn’t care to credit Black women. Otherwise, the thief is clearly an ex-lover: “ni**ah/ wif the curls in yr hair/ mr. Louisiana hot link/ i want my stuff back” (50). In this case, she’s speaking of a woman’s mistake of loving too much, too hard, and too soon. She calls him “a lover/ i made too much// room for [...] & i didnt know i’d give it up so quik” (51). This reclamation of personal power and celebration of self-love ends with the woman taking ownership and responsibility for her power. She declares, “if ya really want it/ i’m the only one/ can handle it” (51). Symbolically, in the arc from girlhood to womanhood, a woman taking ownership of her selfhood, and her actions marks another sign of initiation into adulthood.

The speaker in “sorry” rejects the listener’s apologies, continuing the women’s reclamation of self through the use of their voices. She rejects half-attempts at love and refuses to keep settling for less than she deserves. Shange employs hyperbole and humor to maintain some of the lightness that emerges in the previous poem, outlining her intentions:

[she wants to] leave a message by the phone

if you called

to say yr sorry

call somebody

else

i dont use em anymore (53).

In the end, she dismisses the listener, telling him, “you should admit // you’re mean/ low down/ triflin/ & no count straight out // steada bein sorry alla the time” (54). Her dismissal and her tone represent a fierce rebuttal of the idea that Black women should be willing to accept apologies for the pain Black men have caused them. In many circles at the time, Black women speaking up about their pain was seen as divisive and lacking in solidarity with movements for Black empowerment. Shange’s choreopoem flies in the face of that sentiment.

To further explore this complex issue, Shange follows “sorry” with “a nite with beau willie brown.” In this third-person narrative poem, the speaker recounts the story of a woman, Crystal, whose abusive boyfriend nearly kills her; he ends up killing both their children. Shange acknowledges all the societal and personal factors why a man might resort to such despicable behavior, but she doesn’t let those reasons become an excuse for why women should remain silent or act as if those actions don’t hurt women, their families, and their communities.

Shange paints Beau as a complex character and a product of his environment. Beau Willie Brown has PTSD from fighting in the war. When he tries to use the GI Bill for school, they put him in remedial classes, which frustrates him. He tries driving a cab, but it keeps breaking down, and the police harass him for it. Shange understands that Black men are in pain from the pressures and frustrations they endure, particularly in the 1970s. However, Shange wants the audience to see that some Black women also bear the brunt of some Black men’s pain. Beau Willie’s abuse, anger, and aggression contrast with Crystal’s innocence and tenderheartedness, which becomes her tragic flaw. She lets Beau Willie flatter her and convince her that he means no harm. Even though he breaks into her home, “crystal who had known so lil/ let beau hold kwame [their son]” (59). In the final stanza of the poem, the third-person perspective gives way to the first-person perspective, and Crystal becomes the speaker. This technique forces the reader to perceive themselves as Crystal and to feel her pain and horror as Beau Willie murders her children.

In “a laying on of hands,” Shange invokes an Afro-Christian healing tradition in which a person places their hands on another person to heal their mind, body, and spirit, making them whole again. In the final line of the choreopoem, Shange reiterates the choreopoem’s in-text dedication, “this is for colored girls who have considered suicide/ but are movin to the ends of their own rainbows” (64). In this monologue, the speaker describes seeing the specter of a woman who resembled herself returning to nature. She describes feeling numbness, then cold, then warmth as the environment shifts around her. These changes symbolize the healing transformation occurring within her. The rising sun represents the promise of a new day and a fresh start, and it drives away the cold, symbolizing a rebirth. The ghostly girl from “dark phrases” is fully revived.

The final line of “dark phrases” dedicates the choreopoem to women who have moved “to the ends of their own rainbows” (6), meaning the women who have already transformed and healed. This past tense statement refers to the women in Shange’s life who inspired her to tell these stories—her ancestors. Her dedication in the print edition says, “for the spirits of my grandma viola benzena murray owens and my great aunt effie owens josey” (front matter, copyright page). The verb tense changes in the final line to women who “are movin” (64), which expands the in-text dedication to include the women who come after Shange, audience members, readers, as well as the women in her family.