Race ,Gender, Multi-Ethnicity and Cultural Poetics/Politics of Audre Lorde
Abstract: African American women poets, throughout the centuries have always defined themselves and their community in their works. It has been more apparent in literature, especially in poetry. Audre Lorde is an African American writer, radical feminist, womanist, and civil rights activist. Writing poetry was a responsibility for her as it was necessary for her survival and the survival of others. This study considers race, gender, multi-ethnicity and cultural politics in the select poems of Audre Lorde to the exclusion of the other layers integral to the texture of her poems.
Main Paper
“The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing …show more content…
The other mother, who is as pale as a witch, has symbolically devoured the dark mother. Lorde refers to the first mother as dark and rich which is Africa and the other is pale as a witch which is America. Lorde is expressing to the reader, a new perspective fitting for a Black woman; she points out that black can be good, that white is not necessarily always better. However, in this case, it seems that the evil pale mother has won, having metaphorically swallowed the first mother. This poem seems to tell Lorde’s idea of motherhood or even about her own mother. Lorde closes the poem by …show more content…
As a result, Black woman was born. She says: I cannot recall the words of my first poem but I remember a promise I made my pen never to leave it lying in somebody else’s blood. (CPA 360)
Writing with the ink of her own precisely claimed blood keeps Lorde from using her pen like a ghostly white pencil to spill the blood of others. The poem “Who Said It Was Simple” depicts many reasons for women’s anger and liberation. She compares it to a tree which shatters before it bears. She describes a woman’s rally with hired girls. They are marching on the road, shouting their slogans. They do not seem to understand the meaning of their rally. They never seem to notice the pleasures as well as pains of their oppression: But I who am bound by my mirror as well as my bed see causes in colour as well as sex
and sit here wondering which me will survive all these liberations. (CPA 92) Lorde expresses her anger over political issues; the cruelties and injustices in one’s life. But what preoccupies in her poetry is sexual and racial
Abstract: African American women poets, throughout the centuries have always defined themselves and their community in their works. It has been more apparent in literature, especially in poetry. Audre Lorde is an African American writer, radical feminist, womanist, and civil rights activist. Writing poetry was a responsibility for her as it was necessary for her survival and the survival of others. This study considers race, gender, multi-ethnicity and cultural politics in the select poems of Audre Lorde to the exclusion of the other layers integral to the texture of her poems.
Main Paper
“The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing …show more content…
The other mother, who is as pale as a witch, has symbolically devoured the dark mother. Lorde refers to the first mother as dark and rich which is Africa and the other is pale as a witch which is America. Lorde is expressing to the reader, a new perspective fitting for a Black woman; she points out that black can be good, that white is not necessarily always better. However, in this case, it seems that the evil pale mother has won, having metaphorically swallowed the first mother. This poem seems to tell Lorde’s idea of motherhood or even about her own mother. Lorde closes the poem by …show more content…
As a result, Black woman was born. She says: I cannot recall the words of my first poem but I remember a promise I made my pen never to leave it lying in somebody else’s blood. (CPA 360)
Writing with the ink of her own precisely claimed blood keeps Lorde from using her pen like a ghostly white pencil to spill the blood of others. The poem “Who Said It Was Simple” depicts many reasons for women’s anger and liberation. She compares it to a tree which shatters before it bears. She describes a woman’s rally with hired girls. They are marching on the road, shouting their slogans. They do not seem to understand the meaning of their rally. They never seem to notice the pleasures as well as pains of their oppression: But I who am bound by my mirror as well as my bed see causes in colour as well as sex
and sit here wondering which me will survive all these liberations. (CPA 92) Lorde expresses her anger over political issues; the cruelties and injustices in one’s life. But what preoccupies in her poetry is sexual and racial