I have already developed the research topic, thesis, and the authors I want to use. Use sources to help connect poems to reality.
Analyze each poem and tell what they mean.
Hanging Fire- Audre Lorde
I am fourteen
and my skin has betrayed me
the boy I cannot live without
still sucks his tumb
in secret
how come my knees are
always so ashy
what if I die
before the morning comes
and momma’s in the bedroom
with the door closed.
I have to learn how to dance
in time for the next party
my room is too small for me
suppose I de before graduation
they will sing sad melodies
but finally
tell the truth aout me
There is nothing I want to do
and too much
that has to be done
and momma’s in the bedroom
with the door closed.
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.
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.
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.
poem in praise of menstruation – Lucille Clifton
if there is a river
more beautiful than this
bright as the blood
red edge of the moon if
there is a river
more faithful than this
returning each month
to the same delta if there
is a river
braver than this
coming and coming in a surge
of passion, of pain if there is
a river
more ancient than this
daughter of eve
mother of cain and of abel if there is in
the universe such a river if
there is some where water
more powerful than this wild
water
pray that it flows also
through animals
beautiful and faithful and ancient
and female and brave
the lost baby poem
the time I dropped your almost body down
down to meet the waters under the city
and run one with the sewage to the sea
what did i know about waters rushing back
what did i know about drowning or being drowned
you would have been born into winter in the year of the disconnected gas and no car
we would have made the thin walk over genesee hill
into the canada wind to watch you
slip like ice into strangers’ hands
you would have fallen naked as snow into winter
if you were here i could tell you these
and some other things
if i am ever less than a mountain for your definite
brothers and sisters let the rivers pour over my head
let the sea take me for a spiller of seas
let black men call me stranger always
for your never named sake
later i’ll say
i spent my life
loving a great man
later
my life will accuse me
of various treasons
not black enough
too black
eyes closed when they should have been open
eyes open when they should have been closed
will accuse me for unborn babies
and dead trees
later
when i defend again and again
with this love
my life will keep silent
listening to
my body breaking