Power Trip
In Justice
Audre Lorde wrote a poem called “Power” after learning about the acquittal of a white police officer for murdering a 10-year-old black child in 1973. The poem begins, “The difference between poetry and rhetoric / is being ready to kill / yourself / instead of your children.” While sitting with this poem in our current political climate, reading it over and over, I started to question why Lorde titled the poem “Power” and what exactly this first line means for someone who lives with no choice between the two.
In the face of gross corruption, poetry can feel insufficient, and yet rhetoric can feel tone-deaf. All great poets who see themselves as a part of a community grapple with the relevance of their poems to the material conditions of abuse, poverty, and injustice. What power do we have? And in the case of Lorde’s first line, what power does any person really have who is forced to choose between poetry and rhetoric, “being ready to kill yourself / instead of your children?” Power corrupts.
“In Justice,” my response to “Power,” attempts to address the nuance between poetry and rhetoric. Though we may feel powerless, each person has some relationship with and to power. It is a privilege, in a labor-driven society, to sit and write poems. And yet, it is difficult, necessary, and…
