christina61
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Karma: 0 |  | "Diaspora" by Audre Lorde
« Thread Started on Nov 20, 2008, 5:51pm » | |
Diaspora
Afraid is a country with no exit visas
a wire of ants walking the horizon
embroiders our passports at birth
Johannesburg Alabama
a dark girl flees the cattle prods
skin hanging from her shredded nails
escapes into my nightmare
half an hour before the Shatila dawn
wakes in the well of a borrowed Volkswagen
or a rickety midnight sleeper out of White River Junction
Washington bound again
gulps carbon monoxide in a false bottomed truck
fording the Braceras Grande
or an up-country river
grenades held dry in a calabash
leaving
Our Dead Behind Us, Audre Lorde, W.W. Norton, 1986
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kbecker
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Karma: 0 | | Re: "Diaspora" by Audre Lorde
« Reply #1 on Nov 20, 2008, 9:44pm » | |
Thanks for this. I am struck by the specificity of place names, how evil is not nebulous, but in the details. Journals likewise are about the details, the places we inhabit emotionally and physically.
I appreciate your giving us more food for thought.
Kim
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christina61
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« Reply #2 on Nov 22, 2008, 6:35pm » | |
Yes, the specificity of evil is a good way to describe what Lorde is about in this poem.
And the calabash with a grenade hidden inside is a truly difficult but vital image - the calabash is sacred in many cultures - African and Native American - and symbolizes a specific summons to the loa in Haitian voudon, for example, most particularly Papa Legba, the guardian of the crossroads, the emissary of the underworld, and to have someone place a grenades inside a calabash, well it shows just how determined that person must be to use them.
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kbecker
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« Reply #3 on Nov 23, 2008, 10:49pm » | |
"grenades inside a calabash"
This line from the poem--and your helpful explanation--make me think of how things can be disguised. Sometimes it is the opposite: something bad (or off-putting) on the outside can hold something good. In writing, it seems to me that I am often exploring that edge. Journals are where those first connections are often revealed and if they hold true, they may appear in a poem or story. And speaking of outside, I have been moved to re-read Sister, Outsider since we began this discussion. Her writing has meant a lot to me. Thank you for highlighting her work.
Kim
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christina61
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« Reply #4 on Nov 23, 2008, 11:25pm » | |
Thank you Kim for adding your thoughtful commentary on this Journal site. Your interest and insight are very much appreciated.
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