Vaginas, Cunt, or Pussy

For Ensler, language is important? Why? What does it matter what we call body parts? What is the importance of language in defining sexuality, bodies, etc.? Why do you think she asks those questions about what vaginas would wear, etc? What is she trying to do with that?

For Eve Ensler author of the Vagina Monologues language is an important topic because there are so many names that women have adopted to name their lower extremity. And as children you don't question the name that your mother gives yours until you have reached adulthood. Regardless if whether it is Cunt, Goodies, Vagina, or Coochie; but these very names are what defines the character of your vagina or if whether you embrace having one or not.

Ensler has a reason to why she is interested in questioning women about what their vaginas would wear, I feel this question is valuable because whatever the women may select speaks loudly about how that women defines herself. Lets say for instance that the women may respond that her vagina wears diamond jewelry. That woman feels highly of herself.

The questions she asks the women she interviews also serve as a way to have the women question herself. Woman don't quite often sit down and talk about their vaginas with one another as if it is a secret that they have one. A vagina is what anatomically defines who we are. If you have a concise definintion as to what defines you, then it is easier to answer those questions.

Night Women

Tonight I chose to blog about Edwidge Danticat’s story Night Women. It gives you an inside look to the harrowing tale of a twenty-five year old Haitian woman who is prostituting to provide for herself and her young son. Although the mother is trying to maintain her child’s innocence by not truly conveying to him her true occupation, she is running her “business” next to her young son’s bed as he sleeps.

This night in particular she allows him to sleep in his Sunday’s clothes, and her scarf that she uses to lure her ‘angel’s’. She tells him she gets made up before bedtime because she’s waiting for an angel to come. She worries he’ll someday find out the truth, especially as she sees him becoming older and more sexually aware. Sexually aware in the aspect that he mimics the sexual groans and moans he hears her and her ‘angels’ make awhile he sleeps.  

If he ever wakes to find her with one of her regular married men, she will tell him it’s his father, visiting for one night. Now, for me to not be a mother myself I try not to past judgment upon what one has to do in order to keep her family intact, but I just feel that that is a wrong move all together.

But Danticat’s protagonist has an interesting perspective on the situation, “And as long as there’s work, they will not have to lie next to the lifeless soul of a man whose scent lingers in another woman’s bed.” I feel that this line alone speaks more of painful experiences that she has with men in general. She must feel that she has no other choice but to do what she is doing.

A reoccurring theme throughout the novel is women and their ability to keep going in times of despair.

Arabic Coffee

After I read the poem Arabic Coffee, by Naomi Shihab Nye I was compelled to Google the phrase how to prepare Arabic coffee, and I was directed to a page that described in elaborate detail what the process is to make Arabic coffee, as Nye did in her poem from the beginning of the second stanza until the conclusion of the poem.I believe that Nye used her poem Arabic coffee so show that there is a commonality between the American and the Arabic Cultures, although after 9/11 some Americans adopted an ethnocentric attitude towards the Arabians; believing that the American culture is better than the Arabian culture.

The poem is clandestinely using the preparation and serving of Arabic coffee as a way to rhetorically juxtapose that idea that spending time with family is known universally to man. This is a reoccurring theme in, Father and The Figtree, The Words under the Words, My Grandmother in the Stars.

In the first stanza she is dictating to her father how to make the coffee so that the audience is aware of the process as well. She is also demanding that he tells her more family stories as he has done so throughout the years. The family must gather together and drink coffee to talk about things. Ending that stanza stating, how luck lives in a spot of grounds, Arabic coffee must be one thing that completes her being.
In the second stanza there was a line that captured my attention it says, No sugar in his pot. I believe that sentence has a deeper meaning. I believe that she is capturing her father as a strong man, stating that he is not sweet.

Her poem signifies not only the glorification of a strong familial bond, she also is stressing that Americans should throw their ethnocentric ideas out the door.

19 Varieties of Gazelle

The Gazelle

I decided to write an analysis of the poem 19 Varieties of Gazelle, by Naomi Shihab Nye. The interesting thing about it is, upon my initial reading of the poem I thought a gazelle was some type of bird. Then I Goggled images of gazelle, and to my amazement they favor deer’s. This bought together the whole poem for me. Deer’s have this peaceful grace to their existence (that they allow humans to see anyway). So I drew that as a commonality between gazelles and deer’s based upon Nye's description of them being elegant, graceful.

Nye uses the gazelle as her protagonist of this poem to elude peace, and she is contrasting their existence with the negativity in society. I feel that as the poem progresses the reader starts to question how can an animal so peaceful exist in a society where there we lack humility, there's a tenfold of violence, and no type of sanity.

She takes the reader on an adventure in the seeking of peace on a path on a small sandy island, asking the reader to let go of their adversaries and go.  That is evident is lines 22-26 where some island keeper is trying to convince her not to chase the gazelle, because they have gone too far. But that did not stop her from taking the journey.

In lines 27-30 she is taking the reader on the actual journey, she and this other person is hiking and come across the Tree of Life, which emphasizes the gazelle’s path of grace. But then she raises the point that society begets society, she photographs a sign that reads, “Keep to the Path.” Reading that line signifies that society is not peaceful because nobody ever decides to travel the road not taken, they just stick to the script; because they do not know any better.  

But as the poem is coming to an end she asks the reader rhetorical questions to bring focus back to the gazelle. In line 33-34, she asks, “Does a gazelle have a path? Is the whole air the path of the gazelle?” These lines serve as reinforcers for us to continue to question why we as human do not seek peace and we have an amenity that gazelles do not possess; a voice.

The poem was very powerful to me…

Why: By Unknown

Why are we ignorant
To the things that we do
Like Black on Black crime
From the violence we brew
Why do we wear
Our pants hanging low
Like ghetto-ish bums
In a circus freak showWhy do we curse
And cuss like we do
And talk in Ebonics
Like the slaves use to do

Over four hundred years
Of shame and disgrace
We use the "N" word
Like no other race

Why do we leave
Our young ones alone
No family like structure
No house to call home

Why can't we prosper
Like Immigrants do
Who came here with nothing
And pave their way through

Why do we live
Such drug hungry lives
With gangsters and thugs
Packing guns and sharp knives

We seem to enjoy
Life on the streets
We work those slave jobs
Where pay is dirt-cheap

We live a life style
Of roach broken homes
Where trash and graffiti
And rats seem to roam

We don't get involve
In political laws
Nor do we vote out
Laws that have flaws

We're exploiting our music
With our sexual drive
Degrading our women
And destroying their lives

Our schools become jails
That we seem to fill
Like thieves in the night
We learn how to steal

So why can't we learn
Constructible skills
And walk the right path
To conquer all hills

Why can't we start
A new kind of trend
As Doctors and Scholars
And Builders of men

Why can't we sharpen
Our minds and technique
And show the whole world
That we are unique

Why can't we come
Together as one
So No one can say
That we were born dumb

Why can't we break
This bondage we keep
This hole that's been dug
So low and so deep

Why must we feel
It's been too many years
Wearing these chains
Of blood sweat and tears

And why can't we send
Our kids off to college
Its always been known
That strength comes from knowledge

We are destine to lose
This destruction of doom
The road of dead ends
These shadows of gloom

I pray we could change
These things we do wrong
For it's tough being Black
And hard to stay strong

This poem was chosen because it ids something I came across that caught my attention as I was looking for poems to embrace the African American culture. Although this poem may create an image that most may frown upon, I am in love with this poem because it is describing a real epidemic and shedding some light on relevant issues in the African American community. If more people spoke out about them as this anonymous author did, then maybe we will see some changes being made within the community. But until then the community will continue to destroy itself, because people will not do better until they know they need to change.