AUDRE LORDE WAS an american writer, feminist, womanist, civil rights activist and one of the most influential and popular poets of the mid to late 20th century. she described herself as ‘black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet’.
poetry was lorde’s first love: she said, regarding her younger self: ‘i used to speak in poetry… i would recite a poem and somewhere in that poem would be a line or a feeling i would be sharing’. when she couldn’t find a line that conveyed her thoughts and feelings, she decided to write her own.
lorde used her infatuation with verse to share experiences, stories and messages about social and racial justice, sexuality and what is was like to be a black queer woman occupying white middle class spaces.
‘recreation’: synonymous to pleasure and relaxation, also meaning the rebuilding of something. ‘recreation’, the word lorde used to ornament a poem that blurs the distinction between sex and poetry, making them metaphors of each other.
‘Coming together / it is easier to work / after our bodies / meet / paper and pen’
‘coming together’… ‘meet’… the lines describe a union of two bodies that fit together perfectly, like ‘paper and pen’. two things that are made for each other, go hand in hand together, that are indispensable to one another. lorde, as i mentioned before, was captivated by poetry, so her likening it to sex, something that grants both great pleasure and release, shows the extent to which it had captured her heart. enjambement (run-on-lines) is used throughout this poem, signifying broken speech; a pause to emphasise certain words, or perhaps to create the visualisation of sex, of unfinished sentences as your mind is overtaken by the overwhelming feeling of pleasure that your words disappear along with your worries.
‘neither care nor profit / whether we write or not’
as she puts pen to paper, as her body collides with her lover’s, lorde tells us that there is no ulterior motive here. they’re not interested in what they can gain after this, what they will achieve when this is over. lorde writes because it’s what feels right to her.
writing isn’t a task to her or a means to reach for a certain goal. lorde writes for release, to bring clarity to her befuddled mind. lorde feels because it feels good to do so. in that moment, all that matters is her and her partner, as they become one.
‘but as your body moves / under my hands / charged and waiting’
‘charged and waiting’. arousal so apparent it feels electric, as sex is often described; like a spark, the energy vibrating between two lovers. like a blank sheet of paper waiting to be filled with words, erratic scratches of ink upon its surface, lorde’s partner anticipates her next move, wanting.
‘we cut the leash’
any restraint, any signs of holding back vanish at this moment. they both let go to fall into each other, the previous buzz of anticipation now within them, as their touches light each other up, spots of stimulation showing on the surfaces of their skin.
‘you create me against your thighs / hilly with images’
like writing, where the words you write create imagery in the mind of the reader, lorde’s partner ‘create[s]’ her with her words, with her body, communicating the desires she wants lorde to fulfil. and she delivers, mapping out her images ‘against [her] thighs’.
‘moving through our word countries / my body / writes into your flesh / the poem / you make of me’
the phrase ‘word countries’ implies to me distances caused by communication, love languages separated by borders difficult to overcome: an obstacle in most relationships. in their union, lorde’s and her partner have ‘[moved] through’ these barriers, shamelessly telling each other what they want, through breathy sentences and movement of bodies. lorde’s ‘body writes into [her partner’s] flesh’, exposing herself completely to her. in an idealistic, romantic view of sex, lorde has showcased her vulnerability to her partner, made herself transparent to her both physically and mentally, and her partner embraced this, turning her into a ‘poem’, which lorde imprints onto her in an act of love.
‘Touching you I catch midnight / as moon fires set in my throat’
the sky descends. the galaxy is created between them, as their love begins to transcend. the moon, which controls the tides, is now on fire, alight with passion. fire and water. pen and paper. they’re meant for each other, as important to each other as the duos they’re compared to. their love is a law of nature, as big as the universe itself. the stars and constellations lorde sees on her partner’s skin map out a love story; the moon endlessly orbits the earth like a dedicated, watchful lover.
‘I love you flesh into blossom / I made you / and take you made / into me.’
with her love, lorde’s partner causes her to bloom; a rebirth, like the first flower during spring. they disassembled each other as they shed their clothes, naked in every sense of the world as they joined together to create each other again, born of each other like adam and eve. the word ‘blossom’ also means ‘to mature/develop in a promising way’. as they came together and clarity blessed them in waves of intense gratification, they rebuilt themselves into something more beautiful.
broken, lorde and her partner recreated each other in a fusion of love and want, their touches mending each other bit by bit. gasps became lines, kisses became stanzas. in an ode to poetry, lorde and her partner let go of themselves to become one. like pen and paper, like release, a distraction from everything for a while yet rooted in the present. feeling is the most important thing, as two bodies come together to create art.
cover artwork by lucy liu
links to the artworks contained in the article:
https://t.co/4ClC7oeUwO?amp=1 (@/alphachanneling on instagram)
https://t.co/I69eS5qCZk?amp=1 (@/eroticwatercolour on instagram)
https://t.co/XQ0NzoSLsI?amp=1 (@/petitesluxures on instagram)
