Academic Scholarship on "Four Women"

In this poem, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers gives another type of voice to “Peaches,” the last character of Nina Simone’s song, Four Women. Jeffers says, “or the last of the line, broken-Peaches- dueling the air with her fist.” Peaches is the last of the line of four women that Simone sings about and some have interpreted these women to all be related to each other, and Peaches is the most audibly angry. Jeffers ends this short poem with the lines, “Here, one of your four women, Nina./ What marks her mocked, mocking horizon?/ Stilled, she sighs over a small,/ freed something./ Quickened, that woman bends, rises, bends:/ another row.” Freedom comes in small batches and gives these women the life and strength to carry on, ploughing the terrain for those who are to come after. What do you think of Jeffers poem? Leave your own in the comments if you'd like!