CHAPTER IV DISCUSSION
4.1.1 Women’s Voices in Audre Lorde’s Selected Poems
The selected poems to be discussed here are A Litany for Survival, a poem from Audre Lorde's collection “The Black Unicorn”, was published in 1978. In this poem, Lorde encourages the audience to recognize their rights, to use their intrinsic courage, wisdom, and individuality to overcome their fears, and to use their voice as a tool to raise their visibility in the front row. The second poem is A Woman Speaks, was first published in Audre Lorde's collection “The Black Unicorn” in 1997. This poem expresses the identity and proudness of being a Black woman, as well as the power of Black women to fight for their right to transports a powerful message about the lives of black women whose voices are frequently ignored.
In the first stanza, Lorde wants to voice her struggle to achieve her dream. Her voice is reflected in the first stanza, which reads as follows:
Stanza 1 (A Litany for Survival)
For those of us who live at the shoreline standing upon the constant edges of decision crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward at once before and after seeking a now that can breed futures
like bread in our children’s mouths
so their dreams will not reflect the death of ours;
The poem begins by demonstrating how vulnerable members of society are unable to live as freely as other. Lorde highlights people who are on the margins of society and are working hard to achieve their goals. Their lives are in a time of distress, and each decision they make will have a significant impact on what happens next. Every human being has dreams in their life. Because a dream is not only about desires, but also determines the purpose of life. As a result, Lorde declares that people have the right to fight for their dreams, as their dreams decide their future fate. Despite having difficulty achieving their goals, black women are also undervalued by society. As Lorde expresses in the first stanza of her poem "A Women Speaks"
below:
Stanza 1 (A Woman Speaks)
Moon marked and touched by sun my magic is unwritten
but when the sea turns back it will leave my shape behind.
I seek no favor untouched by blood
unrelenting as the curse of love permanent as my errors
or my pride I do not mix love with pity nor hate with scorn
and if you would know me look into the entrails of Uranus where the restless oceans pound.
This quotation give explanation that Lorde expresses her own undervalued power by describing herself as a moon that has been miraculously touched and changed by the sun, but her magic has never been written. Lorde demonstrates how Black women have been pushed to the margins of society. For example, Lorde claims that her "magic is unwritten," meaning that her impact on society has gone unrecognized and underappreciated. Lorde wants to speak to the reader about the lack of appreciation for black women regarding their existence. Lorde also wants to show the oppression she is experiencing verbally, as she writes in the following stanza:
Stanza 2 (A Litany for Survival) For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found the heavy-footed hoped to silence us For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.
Violence does not only occur when you commit or are subjected to physical abuse.
There is another type of violence that is more dangerous than physical violence, namely verbal violence. The second stanza discusses the verbal violence experienced by Lorde or marginalized people at the hands of the dominant group, presenting a false narrative that marginalized people will not be able to survive.
Marginalized people are forced to keep quiet about oppression in order to protect themselves and their loved ones. Lorde wants to underscore that everyone has the
right to live and to defend their life and property. Deal with this situation, in her second poem “A Women Speaks”, Lorde attempts to encourage readers, particularly those who share the same identity, they had to band together to fight the injustices they faced, which she explains in the poem quotation below:
Stanza 2 (A Woman Speaks) I do not dwell
within my birth nor my divinities who am ageless and half-grown and still seeking
my sisters
witches in Dahomey
wear me inside their coiled cloths as our mother did
mourning.
Lorde also stated that she wants to voice her fight for the right to be able to live safely without being haunted by fear. Her voice is reflected in the third stanza “A Litany for Survival”, which reads as follows:
Stanza 3 (A Litany for Survival)
And when the sun rises we are afraid it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed
but when we are silent we are still afraid
A sequence of fears appears in the third stanza, Lorde outlines how marginalized people can never feel at ease or secure. Lorde explains the numerous aspects of their lives and how they are ruled by fear in every side of a situation. Lorde wants to emphasize the importance of dealing with this situation, because everyone has the right to a feeling of safety and peace, as well as protection against the prospect of being forced to act.
In the final stanza, which is noticeably shorter than the previous three and contains only three lines (lines 42-44). Recognizing that marginalized people will always be fearful as a result of oppression, Lorde encourages the reader to consider that they have nothing to lose by speaking up. Finally, Lorde argues that it is better to speak up because individuals have the right to freedom regardless of their race, skin color, or gender.
Stanza 4 (A Litany for Survival) So it is better to speak remembering
we were never meant to survive.
This quotation also supports by the final stanza of “A Woman Speaks” written as follow:
Stanza 3 (A Woman Speaks) I have been woman for a long time beware my smile
I am treacherous with old magic and the noon's new fury
with all your wide futures promised
I am woman
and not white.
Lorde proudly affirms her identity as a black woman and warns against looking down on black women. She also wants to demonstrate that black women have the power to fight injustice for their voices being ignored. Lorde hoped that people would treat women for their personalities and actions rather than just because they were women. Even though Black women have experienced pain, misery, and sorrow throughout history, this does not mean that they are hopeless. Pain and sorrow, on the other hand, train Black women to be strong, and resilient in the face of adversity. The willingness to display Black women's identities was part of a campaign to speak up and unite with all Black women who are discriminated against in order to gain more power and have their rights enforced properly.