Black Women’s Struggle for Space and Redefinition Through Poetry

What We Can Learn from Audre Lorde & Wanda Coleman

Poetry is creativity, illumination, passion, hope, activism, power. Poetry allows people to put down on paper the words they are unable to say out loud. Women’s voices have been suppressed throughout time, but no voice has been put down in the way that the voice of Black women has. Audre Lorde’s critical essay Poetry is not a Luxury ties poetry and feminist theory together in expressing the idea that creativity is essential to black women’s empowerment and survival, while Wanda Coleman’s poems Women of My Color and Where I Live show the way in which poetry is not a luxury in her life.

Audre Lorde’s Poetry is not a Luxury tells readers what poetry means to the black community while Coleman illustrates how poetry can give an insight into the lives of black individuals in society. Lorde points to the fact that poetry was the only outlet many Black women had to express themselves during and following slavery. Through poetry they were able to express their struggles, oppressions from sexual exploitation to violence and transform those traumatic experiences into hopes, dreams for a better reality. During slavery the command was to be the Mammy for the white family and following that, the narratives thrust upon black women have been those of the Jezebel and the Welfare Queen. Poetry has been used to reclaim autonomy and form a new definition of the self in a world where Black women were constantly told who to be, what to do, how to feel. Lorde states, “We learn more and more to cherish our feelings, and to respect those hidden sources of our power from where true knowledge and, therefore, lasting action come.”  Women were unlearning the idea that they should be someone other than their true selves.

In Wanda Coleman’s Where I Live and Women of My Color she uses her poetry to expose the parts of Los Angeles that no one speaks about. In mainstream media we see a Los Angeles full of glitz and glamour with tons of upper class Americans shopping in Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive. Coleman lets the reader see into her version of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles she grew up in, and gives voice to the women whose experiences are hidden, judged and suppressed. She describes the “hamburgerfishchilli smells” and the farms they call schools, which speak to the fact that in neighborhoods like these, black children are often bred to be prisoners. As Coleman exposes her true Los Angeles she is reinforcing Lorde’s idea of reclaiming autonomy and redefining western literature for herself and her community and unlearning the idea, according to American society, of what it means to be a Black woman in Los Angeles.

What is most important about Lorde and Coleman’s works is that they are speaking to every woman reinforcing the notion that inside of them they all have tools for change. In Women of My Color each time Coleman describes how the women of her color are regarded she is speaking to each and every black women in pointing out they are all seen under the same peculiar light that Coleman refers to in the poem. Similarly, Lorde maintains that:

“For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity for our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change.”

Again, the words she uses are inclusive of all Black women. She explains poetry as the one thing that allows them to dream and hope for a better future. Lorde’s message is that for Black women poetry is much more than just art; it means power, activism and freedom. Coleman and Lorde’s inclusive vocabulary allows Black women to derive inspiration and strength from their works. Their creativity and work is aiding in the empowerment of Black women.

In Where I Live, Coleman’s depiction of the Black woman in Los Angeles breaks down the stereotypes of the ghetto Black woman and instead lifts her up as a survivor; Lorde’s idea of self-definition is reintroduced through Coleman’s words. Coleman describes the hardships the Black woman in black Los Angeles endures; from working in the nightclub from one to six in the morning to being four months behind on rent and having to avoid the landlord because it’s tough to make ends meet. Despite the struggle they describe, Coleman’s words are delivered with an attitude that doesn’t try to make the Black woman’s story sad because she has to struggle but shows that she’s put up with enough to be counted and dignified. Coleman is redefining Black womanhood and tearing down the preconceived notions society has created. As Lorde asserts in her essay:

“The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the change which we hope to bring about through those lives.”

They both speak to the fact that as women who have experienced struggle, they are in charge of not seeing themselves through the same lens through which society sees them, but instead as their true, powerful selves.

In Women of My Color Coleman speaks to the sexual objectification that Black women endure and transposes those feelings into a language so that they can be shared. She tells the readers what it feels and looks like to be a Black woman in a patriarchal, white society. She describes women in the eyes of both black and white man and ultimately tells readers that no matter which way you’re looking at it, Black women are regarded as whores and enemies to both kinds of men despite the color differences and despite the fact that black men are part of their own community. Coleman writes, being on the bottom where pressures are greatest is least desirable would be better to be dead I sometimes think. She is sharing her disdain at being at the very bottom of every spectrum in terms of power because Black women are oppressed due to both their race and gender. Just being able to put these words to paper in a society that does in fact see Black women as saints, mothers, sisters, whores, enemies all at the same time shows that poetry allows Black women an outlet to give name to the nameless so it can be thought. In order words, often times the criticisms that Coleman makes in her poem are thoughts that others have also had, but in most cases are too afraid to say out loud. Coleman uses her poetry to open the door for other women to speak to this fact and criticize it. Her work has the power to start the discussions that can eventually lead to shifting perspectives.

These three works support one another beautifully. Lorde’s message that poetry is not a luxury for Black women is reinforced by Coleman’s works in the way that she uses her poetry as a means for activism. It’s evident through the anger and attitude in her poems that for Coleman, poetry is not a luxury, as Lorde has already affirmed. Coleman uses her words for the very empowerment of black womanhood that Lorde speaks to.