Ntozake SHANGE

La parole nous lit aux lianes chantées aux cordes vocales

Ntozake SHANGE nous nous dit ce qu’est poète :

« people keep tellin’ me to put my feet on the ground
I get mad and scream
there’s no ground/
only shit pieces from dog horses and men who don’t live anywhere
they tell me, think straight and make myself somethin’/
I shout and sigh / i am a poet / I write poems /
i make words cartwheel and somersault down pages
outa my mouth come visions distilled like bootleg whiskey
/i am like a radio but i am a channel of my own
i keep saying i do this an’ people keep asking what i m gonna do/
what in the hell’ s goin on ?

…….. there are no poets who go to their unemployment officer / saying / yes i wanna put down my profession as poet / They are sure to send you to another office / the one for aid to totally dependant persons /

people keep tellin’ me these are hard times/
what are you gonna be doing ten years from now/
what in the hell d you think / i am gonna be writin poems / i will have poems / inchin up the walls of the lincoln tunnel /i am gonna feed my children poems on rye bread and horseradish/ i am gonna send my mailman off with a poem for his wagon /give my doctor a poem for his heart / i am a poet / i am not a part time poet / i am not an amateur poet
/ i dont even know who that person could be / whoever that is authorizing poetry as an advocation /is a fraud /
put your own feet on the ground / writers don t have to plan another existence forever to live schizophrenically / to be Jane Doe and Medea in one body / i have had it / i am no goin to be ol’ and grey wizened and wise as aunt mamie / i am gonna write poems till i die and when i have gotten outta this body i am gonna hang round in the wind and knock over everybody who got their feet on the ground / i ‘ma let you run wild and leave a poem or two with king kong in his aeroplane to drop pieces of poems / so you all haveta comme together / just to figure out / how you got so far away / so far away from words / however /did you capture language / is a free thing. »

( Ntozake Shange , nappy edges )