Paper #4: Audre Lorde, A Woman/ Dirge For Wasted Children Shubhanga Pandey November 20, 2009

In Poetry Is Not A Luxury, Audre Lorde claims that poetry is an essential component of any social or political struggle and that it lays the foundations for a future of change. Her poem A Woman/Dirge for Wasted Children supports this claim by evoking feeling of anger and a sense of black female identity and using them as instruments of political activism. Lorde uses anger as the most prevalent and powerful form of emotion in this poem. In the essay Poetry Is Not A Luxury, Lorde repeatedly positions feelings as being the most primal of human experiences. This strong belief in the potency of feelings as agents of political change is first seen in the lines I lie/ knowing it is past time for sacrifice/ I burn/ like the hungry tongue of an ochre fire/ like a benediction of fury/,(5-9). By creating a feel of anger that is burning or consuming herself, she exhibits her shock and disbelief at the acquittal of the white police officer who had shot an innocent ten year old black boy. Similarly, rage and desperation can be seen in the final lines of the poem when she says I am bent/ forever/ wiping up blood/ that should be/ you, (36-40). Imagining herself as bent and wiping up blood, she shows how the process of defending rights of the oppressed, by literary methods in her case, can be compared to a manual labour. This comparison, therefore, supports her belief that Poetry Is Not A Luxury. By giving the word forever a separate line, Lorde expresses her anger and frustration at the fact that despite her continuous struggle for rights of the subjugated, no progress seems to have been made. The struggle for social and political equality against the white male establishment, a recurring theme in her poems, here ranges from battling the hypocrisy of the government on

abortion rights to the apathetic treatment of violence in black neighborhoods. The appointment of a man by himself as the legal guardian of the fetuses exposes the undemocratic, patriarchal and monolithic standards adopted by the power structures. While the government takes a so-called pro-life position on matters of abortion, it seems to absurdly ignore the brutal murders of black youths all around the country. Lorde also shows how the establishment tries to hide these double standards by spreading rumors of the necessity for(2) deaths like that of Cliffords and by trying to project these as isolated events. Then by evoking the memories of all those children who had been warred and whored and slaughtered(20) by centuries of sub-human treatment and commodification, she argues for the safety of those who are alive by saying that those children anoint me guardian/ for life.(22-23). Her struggle against this power structure can also be seen from the structure of the poem itself. The usage of free verse and absence of any persistent rhyme meter is again inline with her assertion that poetry is not a sterile word play that the White fathers distorted it to mean but as a way to feel her non-European consciousness. Avoiding the poetic structures of European literary tradition can be seen as her method to show her distance from the predominantly European view of poetry as a luxury. Lordes recognition that poetry is indispensible, especially for womens liberation, gives the poem a strong political overtone. The title of them poem A Woman/ Dirge For Wasted Children is interesting for its specification of gender which suggests that the poet wants to give a black womans perspective of the events. It also indicates the central role of women in singing dirge in most African tradition, once again signifying Lordes appraisal of the non-European outlook of life. The singular use of the noun woman here also is important because it signifies the absence of solidarity among women, both in the wider American society and also within the African-American society. It also recounts this isolation of black women by reminding the readers

of the only black woman who was in the jury that acquitted the white police officer and who was forced to take the majority position to make the decision unanimous. The poem, therefore, serves a political purpose as it resonates with the individual black woman and her feelings towards issues of civil rights, abortion and public safety. In the lines parting earths folds with a searching finger/ I yield/ one drop of blood/ which I know instantly/ is lost., (12-16), she compares the loss of blood during menstrual period to the trivial loss of lives of black children throughout history. This again aims at establishing a black female as the narrator of the poem and therefore internalizes the anger and suffering that was being felt by black women around America. By appealing to the physiological condition of women and by an honest exploration of these conditions, she encourages the growth and dissemination of radical political agendas among black women. The most prominent politicization of feelings in the poem is seen in the comparison of the death of black children to a late abortion. This is accomplished in the lines when in the early light/ another sacrifice is taken/ unchallenged(24-26), and a small dark shape rolls down/ a hilly slope/ dragging its trail of wasted blood(27-29). This portrayal of the killing of the ten year old kid as the wasted blood during late abortion attaches considerable moral stigma to the indifferent and biased treatment of the legal issues surrounding this violence. As late abortion entails the most physical and emotional pain for a woman, the poem also shows how incidents like these around the country have severely affected the black female psyche. Lorde further emphasizes this state of pain and loss in the lines I am broken/ into clefts of screaming(31-32). By making this pain personal through the constant use of the pronoun I she again appeals to the alienated black woman on a very intimate level. This strategy can be observed in lines like I lie(5), I burn(7), I yield(13), I am broken(31) and I am bent(36) where by reminding an individual black woman of her own rage, desperation and loss, Lorde is stirring a revolutionary passion among these

women so that they are capable of real political activism. This exemplifies her belief that through poetry ..we must constantly encourage ourselves and each other to attempt the heretical actions that our dreams imply. For Lorde, ideas are limited and if they are to be converted to actions, they need to be constantly recombined and reenergized by revisiting our experiences and feelings. By using poetry to remind the readers of their dreams, anxieties and most cherished terrors, Lorde gives forms to those latent ideas and exhibits how the personal can be the political. By playing the role of a black woman sharing her very personal feelings of sorrow, anger, pride and desperation with women who have experienced similar feelings, she expands the role of this poem upto the sphere of social and political action. A Woman/ Dirge for Wasted Children convinces one to look at politics through the lens of personal experiences and therefore exemplifies Lordes assertion that Poetry Is Not A Luxury.