This study, using poetry by Carolyn Rodgers, Sarah Webster Fabio, Sonia Sanchez, Sharon Bourke, Ntozake Shange and Jayne Cortez, examines the manifestations of Afrocentric spirituality in women's writing during the Black Arts Movement. Until recently, there has been a paucity of scholarship on the movement. When studying the BAM, critics have heretofore concentrated on sexism, homophobia, nationalism, and racism as its most prominent aspects. However, BAM writers also have a marked concern with spirituality from an African epistemological standpoint, which brings new possibilities for critical analysis to the forefront. Theorists such as Larry Neal furthermore termed the movement as a spiritual sister to the Black Power Movement. This project contributes to the burgeoning conversation on BAM women's poetry by evaluating the ways in which they deem spirituality as essential for agency as women and as black citizens. I identify three major themes in which women's spirituality serves as a prerequisite for or an enabler of black liberation and revolution. Chapter One explains how Carolyn Rodgers, in her books Songs of a Blackbird and How I Got Ovah, creates personas that initially reject Christianity as a Eurocentric religious construction, but subsequently acknowledge the Afrocentric spirituality of the black church and ascribe to it a revolutionary blackness. Chapter Two demonstrates, through Ntozake Shange's for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf and Sonia Sanchez's I've Been a Woman, that women must first give birth to themselves spiritually before they can successfully accomplish the birth of the black nation. Chapter Three examines five poems by Carolyn Rodgers, Jayne Cortez, Sonia Sanchez, Sarah Webster Fabio, and Sharon Bourke, arguing that black women poets activate nommo, the power of words to influence action, when they write jazz poetry; as cultural and spiritual leaders in their own rights, they serve as a type of co-priestess to the black community when they recognize the jazz artist as a spiritual priest. Conclusively, I determine that there is indeed space for the recognition of the intended spiritual goals and accomplishments of the Black Arts Movement, and especially of marginalized black women's poetry. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Summer Semester, 2007. / June 25, 2007. / Black Arts Movement, Women's Poetry, Spirituality, Afrocentricity / Includes bibliographical references. / Jerrilyn McGregory, Professor Directing Thesis; Maxine Montgomery, Committee Member; Dennis Moore, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_182214 |
| Contributors | Green, Dara Tafakari (authoraut), McGregory, Jerrilyn (professor directing thesis), Montgomery, Maxine (committee member), Moore, Dennis (committee member), Department of English (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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