The Black Experience in Four Genres
A handbook
“Juanita is a gifted, mature artist whose plays have been featured in venues throughout the country. Her work is relevant and needed.”
— Erin Merritt, founder and former Artistic Director of Woman's Will, the San Francisco Bay Area's all-female Shakespeare company
Four pieces in this text by writer Judy Juanita - a poem, drama, short story and essay - bring themes of
adolescence
self-determination & ethnic pride
grief and regret, and
the gun as romantic symbol or literal destruction,
to college and high school students and to general readers.
Questions for classroom or group use follow each piece. Each explores the black experience in different eras. The play is suitable for amateur theater productions or as a film script. The poem can be a monologue suitable for drama, speech, civics class or an audition.
The play, "Heaven's Hold," takes place in the 1950s: a rebellious teen wins an essay contest on Americanism but is angered that her best friend's more militant essay didn't win. Her conservative mother wants her to accept it proudly. The play takes about an hour to stage or read in class, with six main characters and three minor characters.
The poem, "Bling," spans the black experience from slavery to the present in 344 words (a Pushcart Prize nominee).
The short story, "Making Room," (1,764 words) involves a modern independent woman picturing the child she never had. Abortion, memory, motherhood, and the power of the unknown haunt her.
The essay, "the Gun as Performance Piece," debates the impact of the 1960s black militant infatuation with the gun and ensuing post -Trayvon Martin disenchantment (a Pushcart Prize nominee).
grade 5-12 and adults
Praise for The Black Experience in Four Genres
“Judy draws on a wide background as an activist, parent, playwright, poet, novelist and teacher. Her youthful participation in the Black Panther Party affected her worldview profoundly, as did her student activism at SFSU… Her writing and angle of vision is superb” —Jennifer Kabat, editor and cofounder, The Weeklings
“I love the poem bling! What a masterful weave of history and contemporary culture, sensitive and packed with muscle and music. A poem to be heard and read over and over." —Andrena Zawinski, poet, editor ("Landings").
EquiDistance Press, 2019
Paperback, 104 pages
ISBN-13 : 978-0971635203
