From Publishers Weekly
Poem follows photo in this 7" x 8-5/16" collection of 135 b&ws taken by the Kamoinge Workshop, a group of African-American photographers founded in 1963. Ostensibly of the African-American family, the photos are not necessarily constrained to what one typically thinks of as "family shots"; rather, they show women, men and children both together and separately, as much outside as inside, as much in large social groups as with "nuclear" families. The effect of this is to expand the definition of "family" to include "location"—the street furniture of sidewalks, stoops and cars becomes as essential to human interaction as dinner plates and birthday cakes. The poems, by playwright and poet Shange (for colored girls who have considered suicide...), are most often literal interpretations of the images, tracing facial expressions and body postures in text. While Shange's gritty, contracted style complements the unadorned and intimate images, at times a less narrative explication of the images would have allowed a little breathing space between mediums—the close interrelation is sometimes claustrophobic, with a "story" pre-empting independent appreciation. It's certainly easy to understand the urge to overexplain one's family, but in these cases, the power and humanity of the images are self-explanatory.
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The Sweet Flypaper of Life (1955), by poet Langston Hughes and photographer Roy DeCarava, brilliantly revealed the everyday lives of African Americans in Harlem, gave voice to unheard citizens, and inspired generations of African American writers and photographers to dispel stereotypes and tell their own stories. The Sweet Breath of Life pays direct tribute to Hughes and DeCarava and continues their narrative. Here, the sometimes raw but mostly potent poetry of Shange sings alongside wonderful photographs, mostly portraits, by members of the Kamoinge Workshop, a photography group of which DeCarava was once president. The images and poems span a lifetime, capturing the rapture of certain moments, the pain and anger of others, and profound but often unseen and unsung glimpses of ordinary life. One would be hard-pressed to say whether poetry or photography dominates this book, for they are inherently intertwined and equally expressive, uniting to create a book that will be treasured by anyone with an interest in poetry, photography, or human nature. Janet St. John
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About the Author
Frank Stewart is senior staff photographer for Jazz at Lincoln Center. The award-winning photographer has contributed to Sweet Swing Blues: On the Road a Year with Wynton Marsalis and His Septet.
Ntozake Shange, poet, novelist, playwright, and performer, wrote the Broadway-produced and Obie Award-winning For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf. She has also written numerous works of fiction, including Sassafras, Cypress and Indigo, Betsy Brown, and Liliane.
