Almanac of Story Tellers: Sapphire

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to story telling -- in prose and in poetry, in art and in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of Aug. 4th

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    It is the 216th day of the year, leaving 149 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1950, the poet and novelist Sapphire was born.

    She wrote her stories about Black life and sexuality in the United States in vivid, unsparing language. Rape, assault, poverty and other abuses flooded her writings, and she explored the impact and consequences on both the molester and the victim.

    Her best known works are her two novels, Push and The Kid, which together tell the story of Precious, an obese, barely literate Black girl who is abused, raped, and has two children. When she is sent to an alternative school, she begins to tell the story of her life.

    Push, written as a series of diary entries, shows how Precious grows as she learns to write, using various language -- including African Vernacular English -- as she learns more. It also tells of her trauma, including the fact that her father, who raped her, has died from AIDS.

    It was later adapted as the movie, Precious, Based on the Novel "Push," by Sapphire.

    The Kid follows the life of her son during his teen years.   

    Sapphire grew up the daughter of an Army couple in California. She dropped out of high school and rambled around the coasts, before landing in New York where she eventually attended the City College of New York and obtained a master's degree from Brooklyn College.

    By the late 1970s, she was writing poems published in various journals in New York. Her first book of poetry, Meditation on the Rainbows, was published in 1987.

    But she did not become a household name when her poem The Wild Thing was published in a journal underwritten from the National Endowment for the Arts. It was wildly criticized for its depictions of violence and sexual abuse, and perceived blasphemy. The resulting controversy resulted in the resignation of the NEA director.

    Sapphire lives in New York City.