Wild Beauty: New and Selected Poems

(Hardback)

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NAACP Image Award Finalist for Outstanding Literary Work

From the poet, novelist, and cultural icon behind the award-winning and extraordinary Broadway play, for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, comes a kaleidoscopic journey through black womanhood (Publishers Weekly, starred review) and a moving bilingual collection of new and beloved poems.

In this stirring collection of more than sixty original and selected poems in both English and Spanish, Ntozake Shange shares her utterly unique, unapologetic, and deeply emotional writing that has made her one of the most iconic literary figures of our time.

With a clear, raw, and affecting voice, Shange draws from her experience as a feminist black woman in American to craft groundbreaking poetry about pain, beauty, and color. In the bestselling tradition of Rupi Kaurs Milk and Honey, Wild Beauty is more than a poetry collection; it is an exquisite call to action for a new generation of women, people of color, feminists, and activists to follow in the authors footsteps in the pursuit of equality and understanding. As The New York Times raves, Ntozake Shange writes with such exquisite care and beauty that anyone can relate to her message.

Reviews

"These powerfully swinging, jabbing, lamenting, testifying, and protesting poems. . . coalesce in a galvanizing, timely, and timeless flow of creativity, valor, compassion, and wisdom." -- Donna Seaman * Booklist Review *
Acclaimed poet, playwright, and novelist Shange, takes readers on a kaleidoscopic journey through black womanhood in her first selected volume.The poems showcase vibrant narratives of black women who are neither solely saints nor sinners.

* Publishers Weekly Starred Review *
Shange returns with powerful new poems drawn from the daily realities of black life. No poet since Langston Hughes has insisted so forcefully on black peoples right to simply be * Washington Post *
Vibrant enough to leave a mark. . . . Shange parses the beauty in cultural variation, music, womanhood, urban life and language. * New York magazine *
A revelation . . Shange is as fearless as ever in poems that reveal our humanity and pain.
Essence

Author Bio

Ntozake Shange is a renowned playwright, poet, and novelist. Born Paulette Williams in 1948, she received her Bachelors degree from Barnard College and her Masters degree from the University of Southern California. Her works include the Broadway-Produced and Obie Award-winning for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, Betsey Brown, Liliane, and Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.