Power Analysis

The poem I chose is “Power” by Audre Lorde

Analytical Analysis

1.

In the first stanza Lorde makes an analogy. She says “The difference between poetry and rhetoric is being ready to kill yourself instead of your children.” i.e poetry is to killing yourself as rhetoric is to killing your children.

2.

Lorde reiterates the first stanza in the last stanza and notes that unless she learns to utilize the difference between poetry and rhetoric her “…power too will run corrupt as poisonous mold.” Suchas murdering a ten year old boy because he was the wrong color.

3.

Lorde describes a difference in blood between herself and the veteran officer. She first metions being lost in the desert, with the only liquid for miles being the blood of a dead child. She thirsts for it, her mouth splitting into dry lips. On the other hand, after shooting a ten year old boy a police officer stands “with his cop shoes in childish blood.” The blood that is so important to her means little him.

4.

There is obvious stereotypical injustice here from the cop who didn’t notice anything about the kid he shot but his color, to the black woman who let go the first real power she ever had, to even the 86 year old woman who was beaten and torched.

5.

In lines 19 and 20 Lorde mentions “…trying to heal my dying son with kisses only the sun will bleach his bones quicker.” These lines and a more personal tone to the poem. The reader feels that the author was inspired to write this poem through some tragedy that she experienced.