BIOGRAPHY ON SAPPHIRE
BIOGRAPHY
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Ramona Lofton, better known to her readers as Sapphire, was born in 1950
in Fort Orr, California. On the surface, her family was characterized as the
normal, middle class family. Her father was an army sergeant and her
mother was a member of the Women's Army Corps. As a child, Sapphire's
family relocated several time to various cities, states, and countries. When
she was only 13 years old, Sapphire's mother became the victim of
alcoholism and eventually departed from her life. Her mother eventually
died in 1983. In that same year, her brother, who was then homeless was
killed in a public park.
Sapphire attended San Francisco City College in the 1970's majoring first in
chemistry and then switching to dance. She soon dropped out to become a
hippie and moved to New York in 1977 taking several odd jobs, including
topless dancing and housekeeping. It wasn't until the early 1980s that she
began writing poetry and reading it aloud at various Village venues including
the Nuyorican Cafe. Sapphire eventually returned to school and graduated
with honors in 1993 with a degree in modern dance. Upon graduation, she
taught reading to students in the Bronx and Harlem and also enrolled in
graduate school at Brooklyn College.
Biography
• Vintage Publishing published her first book,
American Dreams, in 1994. American Dreams
is a combination of poetry and prose, and
according to Publisher's Weekly it was "One of
the strongest debut collections of the '90s". Each
of the selections in this book tells the story of the
cruel realities of inner city life in a brutally honest
way. American Dreams contains one of her
most controversial poems, "Wild Thing", told
from the view of a 13 year-old rapist.
Biography
• Sapphire wrote a second book, a volume of poetry,
entitled Black Wings & Blind Angels, which was
published in 1999. In Black Wings & Blind Angels,
Sapphire addresses a multitude of topics including police
brutality, her relationship with her abusive father and
alcoholic mother, and sexual identity. Sapphire has also
had a number of works printed in several anthologies
including High Risk 2: Writings on Sex, Death &
Subversions, Critical Condition: Women on the Edge
of Violence, and Women on Women: An Anthology of
American Lesbian Short Fiction.
Summary
• Push is narrated by Claireece Precious Jones, a sixteen
year old African-American girl who, when the book
begins, is carrying her father's second child. The victim
of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse at home,
overweight and friendless, Precious has become lost in
the traditional school system where she is in the ninth
grade and always hides in the back of the room. She
describes a scene in her math class when she acts out
to escape admitting she can't read: "[But] I couldn't let
him, anybody, know page 122 look like page 152, 22, 3,
6, 5-all the pages look alike to me" (5).
Summary
• Her pregnancy leads to Precious's being assigned to
Each One Teach One, an alternative school located in
Harlem, and the beginning of a new life. With a
dedicated teacher named Blue Rain, Precious and her
small group of female classmates begin with the
alphabet and progress to reading and writing their
thoughts in daily journals as well as learning math and
other subjects. Over the two years described in
Precious's narrative, her life improves dramatically. She
has her son and escapes her abusive mother by moving
into a halfway house, which allows her to care for her
son and continue school. We share Precious's joy in
learning:
Summary
• I know I'm eighteen, magic number. And my reading
score is 2.8. I ask Ms Rain what that mean. She says it's
a number! And can't no numbers measure how far I done
come in j us' two years. She say forget about the
numbers and just keep working. The author has a
message and the reader's job is to decode that message
as thoroughly as possible. A good reader is like a
detective, she say, looking for clues in the text. A good
reader is like you Precious, she say. Passionate!
Passionately involved with what they are reading. Don't
worry about numbers and fill in the blank, just read and
write! (110)
Summary
• Precious finds her own experiences reflected in
Langston Hughes' poetry and Alice Walker's The
Color Purple and eventually raises her reading
level to 7.8 on the TABE test. Precious's teacher
and her new friends also help her cope with the
knowledge that she is HIV positive. The
150-page book ends with Life Stories, the
affecting essays and poems written by the girls
in her class at the alternative school.
Summary
• Despite the cruelty and harshness evident
in the lives of Precious and the other girls,
the book's message is one of hope.
Through friendship and the nurturing
environment of the school, Precious is
able to improve her life and come to feel
that she is "precious," a unique and
valuable human being.
QUOTES
• Miz Claireece Precious Jones for fucking
my husband you nasty little slut! I feel like
I’m gonna die, cant breathe, from where l
have baby start to hurt. “ fat cunt bucket
slut! Nigger pig bitch! He done quit me !
He done left me ’cause of you. What you
tell them mutherfuckers at the damm
hospital? I should kill you!” (19)
QUOTES
• “Sometimes what I feel I is. I feel so stupid
sometimes. So ugly, worh nuffin; I could
just sit here wif my muver everyday wif the
shades drawed, watching TV, eat, eat,
watch TV” (34-5)
QUOTES
• I was raised by a psycho maniac fool. He climb
on me, you know. You understand? So he on
me. Then he reach over to Precious! Start wif
his finger between her legs. I say Carl what are
you doing! He say shut your big ass up! This is
good for her. Then he git off me, take off her
pampers and try to stick his thing in Precious.
You know what trip me out it is almost can go in
Precious! I think she some kind freak baby then”
(135-6)
QUOTES
• “Carl come over fuck use’s. Go from room
to room, slap me on my ass when he
through, holler WHEE WHEE! Call me
name Butter Ball, Big Mama Two Ton of
Fun. I hate hear him talk more than I hate
fuck. Sometimes fuck feel good. That
confuse me, everything get swimming for
me”(35
QUOTES
• I go home. I'm so lonely there. I never notice before. I'm
so busy getting beat, cooking, cleaning, pussy and
asshole either hurting or popping. School I a joke black
monster, Big Bertha, Blimp B54 where are you? 'N the
TV's in my head always static on, flipping picture. So
much pain, shame--I never feel the loneliness. It such a
small thing compare to your daddy climb on you, your
muver kick you, slave you, feel you up. But now since I
been going to school I feel lonely. Now since I sit in circle
I realize all my life, all my life I been outside of circle.
Mama give me orders, Daddy porno talk me, school
never did learn me.
Quote
• “I don’t have nothing to write to day- maybe never.
Hammer in my heart now, beating me, I feel like my
blood a giant river swell up inside me and I’m drowning.
My head all dark inside. Feel like giant river I never cross
in front me now. Ms. Rain say, You not writing Precious. I
say I drownin’ in river. She don’t look me like i’m crazy
but say, If you just sit there the river gonna rise up and
drown you! Writing could be the boat carry you to the
other side.”(97)
‘“…… Open your notebook Precious.” “I’m tired,” I says.
She says, “I know you are but you can’t stop now
Precious, you gotta push.” And I do.”’ (96-97)
QUOTE
• “My muver don’t want no white shit like
Mrs. Linchenstein social worker teacher
ass nosing around here. My muver don’t
want to get cut off, welfare that is. And
that’s what white shit like Mrs.
Linchenstein coming to visit result in. If I
wasn’ pregnant and having trouble with the
stairs, I run down and kick her ass. My
muver say, ‘”Eighty-six that bitch.”’ I says
in the intercom, Hasta la vista, baby.”(15)
Literature of Social Conscience
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Awareness: on AIDS
Awareness: on incest /rape
Awareness: on social class/economic class
Awareness: on child abuse ( emotional, physical
and neglect)
• Awareness: on illiteracy / among all ages
• Awareness: Educational system
• Awareness: racism
World AIDS Day
Child abuse
TYPES OF ABUSE & ABUSERS
• In 2003, 48.3 percent of child victims were
male; 51.7 percent of victims were female.
83.9 percent of victims were abused by a
parent. 40.8% of child victims were
maltreated by their mothers acting alone;
another 18.8 percent were maltreated by
their fathers acting alone; 16.9 percent
were abused by both parents.1
Child Abuse, Continued
• Men and women serving time in the nation's
prisons and jails report a higher incidence of
abuse as children than the general
population.6
• More than a third of women in the nation's
prisons and jails reported abuse as children,
compared with 12% to 17% for women in the
general population. About 14% of male inmates
reported abuse as children, compared with 5%
to 8% of men in the general population.6
Works Cited Page
• Biographical Information on Sapphire was
taken from:
– Voices from the Gap, website on multicultural
American women writers,
http://voices.cla.umn.edu
• Child Abuse Statistics were taken from:
– Child Help USA website,
http://www.childhelpusa.org/abuseinfo_stats.h
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