NTOZAKE SHANGE SCHOOL OF LITERARY THOUGHT PRESENTS: The Space Between: Yoni Narratives, Volume I

Ntozake Shange School of Literary Thought Over the past one hundred years, Black Women have written themselves into the forgotten pages of a male-dominated society and literary world. They have written about how this power constricts their intersections of simultaneously being Black and Woman. Ntozake Shange writes from this perspective. Her literary work begets a consciousness of Black contemporary femininity in a society that crosses many genres: Playwriting, Novelist, Poet and Essayist. In the celebration of her name and all that Shange represents (she who has her own/walks with lions), we have come together to create a Sisters circle/literary group entitled the Ntozake Shange School of Literary Thought. This is a safe space where Black Women can be subversive and recover ourselves through words in the form of reading, writing and critical analyses through verbal dialogue. Therefore, it is our hope that, Ntozake School of Literary Thought will be a place where Black Women can (re)affirm each other to heal many of the wounds that are inflicted by racism, sexism, classism, and homophobic views through our collective narratives. Our Sista Erin Morales-Williams who encouraged us in the circle to write our own Yoni narratives and thus, inspired this body of work. Enjoy!

Ntozakes Daughters Yoni: is a Sanskrit term used to describe the most sacred part of the females body, the vagina. Instead of looking at our sacred space through the eyes of the dominate society, we self-define and honor our seed of power, which to us, is a natural maternal source of supremacy. A liberator of herself, a healing space, provoking magic. Sheltering the moon, mosque between our legs, Yoni is You + I. Our Yoni is Black. Diata is a teacher, aspiring novelist, and long time poet. She is from Maryland, loves nature and traveling. One day soon she will pack her things and live somewhere faraway and sunny. LadiSasha Genia Lee-Jones is an awesomely amazing dreamer. Living in her head eighty-three percent of the time (with the remainder being lent to the wisdom and hearts of elders and little black girls & boys) she is committed to personal and communal development through creative healing practices - via writing, praying, archives, sisterhood, and sunflowers. Iresha Picot is a lover of books, and all things Nappy, Black and Woman; everything else is secondary. While activism lies at the core of her soul; she also survived graduate school and has an M.Ed from Temple University. Iresha spends most of her time, practicing her theories and trying to take over the world, one Black Woman and Political Prisoner at a time.

Darasia Selby is a lover of sunflowers, pineapples, and springtime, Darasia Selby has been writing since girlhood. Darasia is a Philly native and community activist, directing her energy towards defending the rights of people of Afrikan descent. Her writings reflect and focus on the innate beauty and love in the world, two elements we all seek but that are often ignored, neglected, and uncultivated.

My Yoni Looks Like:

Long wide Savannah plains, Blackened Flat, topped with cocoa oil and Johnson's Purple-Browned velvet skin with Grapefruit entrances and African hillsides, full and strong Leaving only a Feathered Pearl to peak out from between

Erin Morales-Williams was born in East Harlem and raised in the Bronx. She is currently a doctoral student in Urban Ed at Temple University with a research focus on adolescent sexuality. She is a lazy spoken word artist who wants to become a yoga instructor so she can hear the hood say, namaste.

---LadiSasha

My Box Dont beat & batter me anymore. Thats not love. I dont even have much to do with it. Dont invade my secret place, Poking and prodding Dont call me a pretty one. Just call me by my name: Cleansing. Powerful. Creation. It took me a while to realize my box is my secret place. But not a dirty little one: my box is the place I live in. Like a child taking pleasure in cardboard fixes, Rather than in artificial plastic toys Dont talk about my scars. From sickness head to toe, From minds and bellies Dont talk about my past Dont talk about my guilt Because its not fair They say I cant get pleasure Dont even mention the torture: Shaved and itchy! Dominated, dry and bored! Subjected to ridicule! Deceived, nervous I liberate myself. Affirm my Yoni-ity. I break out of the box to become the new me. Healthy and conscious: I make decisions on my own. Do not enter at the door. Let me please me first. Beautiful creation, whether of child or love; Beautiful cleansing of spirit and of touch; Beautiful woman deserving of So talk about it sisters: Sing a song and dance. Hold hands to connect our seats of power. We sit on a throne made of copper, gold, and onyx. Talk about the soft natural touch, the frizzy bush, the happy smile of an acknowledged Yoni. Tell the little ones about it. Talk about the respect thats due for another to enter the heavens. Talk about it. Talk about it.

Diata

LIBERATE ME!

My Yoni Be Strong Honest and All Truth Telling Like I Wish I Be

"My Yoni Smells Like..." wet moist earth. sweet like sunflowers dipped in honey. lilacs in spring rain.

Yoni Be Big and Little Me, Wise and Yoni, She/We Be Smiling Holding, Shifting Through Memories Soft and Bitter Stubborn, Curious Luring Brown Sweets Yoni Be Being Feeling Speaking Spirit Yoni be Strong Strong Honest and All Truth Telling Like I Be Black, Be Queer, Be Womyn Yoni is All the Better Me And We Be Good We Be Good Together --Ladi-Sasha

Darasia

Natural
My Yoni Sounds Like: Happiness. It Giggles. Slurping, when it French kisses Afrikan wet tongues. Humming to a slow Minnie Ripperton Song. Love Whispering Beauty. Sweet Damn, my Yoni sure can sing.

Iresha Picot I always knew that I would go natural even as a young girl, rocking a perm. I was in amazement at the hairs on my vagina with an acute and slightly stalkerish affection. For years, I would twist and play, uncurl and, watch them curl back up in its nice little kinky patch and pat them back into place. It was a daily excursion to watch the hairs curl tighter and tighter into themselves, reminding me of the soft Black curly crown in my baby pictures and I guess in a way, I was holding my youth in my vagina. My country --Iresha sweetness laid there. My innocence. As a teenager, I went through a fetish of sorts, with wearing only white underwear. I told my mom, that I wanted to feel pure like the virgin that I was, but how could I wrap my baby in anything else? She needed to be wrapped in divinity. Placating her

spirits. Her beautiful curly naps needed breathable material to grow. And grow she did. Boyfriends would complain over the years that baby had too much hair and couldnt I just cut it down a little bit? But I couldnt cut babys hair. Didnt they know that it was the hair that gave me a sense of power as I walked around the house in my undies and could see her peeking out from behind her white head wrap with a clenched fist, spiting a haiku: Kinky, Curly Brown To rebel: in between my things My Yoni fears none!

Darasia Shelby why do you fear my power? and scoff at my energy? is it the deepness and the darkness of my depths that frighten you? do you fear you will lose yourself in me? your fear so overwhelms that you cannot whisper my name without some display of what you think is manhood in your fear you fail to recognize my divinity or celebrate my vibrations pulsating in time with the earth's you fear my moon cycles and the red honey that rushes from my banks you should marvel at my ability to bring forth woman, man, and stars with sirius orbiting my core some of you are awakening to my truth my beauty and to you the keys of the kingdom are given Transcend.

What if I looked at My Vagina? By Erin Morales Williams My Yoni tastes like peach butter cream pie. Accented with peppermint tea leaves. It tingles your tongue like the tartness of tree bark. When bitten it gushes the tangy, sweet flesh of a strawberry as the leaves tickle your upper lip. Sip and slurp the smoothie of a lifetime. I was in the shower one morning, a new day dawning, water pouring down my back and past my feet, surprised when I heard words that Id never thought Id speak, especially since it was about woman things, secrets I were taught to keep not among other women, but secrets to only keep with me so, I was cleanin down there, You know, the brown girl with the kinky hair, the one you might see when you change a pad, but you never really stare. Because shes just kinda there, so you might not really care. Well, that morning with the water pouring, I thought about how much ignoring I actually do since only boys calk talk about their family jewels, so many rules on the vagina- hold up- I said it-so

--Diata

lemme say it one more time in case it was a crime against your mind- Vagina. I got one just like you, and I think about all the ignorin that we too often do, how many stories of vaginas history too often excludes Like how the yoni was highly worshiped by the people of Hindu, how Yoni powers came from the vaginas of goddesses that looked like me and you. Or even Tantric Buddhism that teaches to look inside the vagina if you tryin to find the truth, all the vaginas ravaged in Rwanda, all the women that lost their youth, all the children born from those vaginas, all the healing that they still do. And just when I was jammin to Weazy F. Baby please say the baby, rhyming right wit him that he was a veneral disease like a menstrual bleed, I found out the Beng of West Africa see the period as cleansing need, a sign of purification, not a dirty little deed. So in that morning in that shower I started to seek and find a power, asking questions for an hour what

if my vagina was not just another part of me, but a sacred part of me- not a shameful part of me, but a main part of meWhat if my vagina was not just a thing, what if my vagina had a song that it never got to sing, since she was just there, and never was I listeningWhat if I stared at my vagina, what if I thought wasnt pretty What if I looked at her with pride, would she start to look different, would she glow like a city What if I didnt like her smell, or all the cramps and all the panties stained with blood, What if I knew to soak her with jasmine water, that the flood I see each month was tied to the movements of the moon, what if I put her on a pedestal instead of some back room What if she wasnt made just to make little boys feel like men, and give them a little fame, what if my vagina was an independent woman, what if my vagina demanded some change.

If you would like to read more of our work from the Ntozake Shange School of Literary Thought, you can find it at Ntozakesdaughters.blogspot.com. The Sisters of Ntozake Shange School of Literary Thought will also love to invite all Sisters living or visiting in Philly, to come out and partake in our literary circle. We meet every other Sunday from 35pm in W.Philly. For more information please contact us at Iresha.Picot@gmail.com or become our friend on facebook: Ntozake School of Literary Thought

When there is Woman, there is Magic --Ntozake Shange