Coal by Audre Lorde

Hello readers!

 

I'm currently in Chi-town, (Chicago) attending summer school and doing some research on West-African women in the diaspora. I've been looking for other creative texts to use in my research and also just to keep me thinking. Now I have to learn not only to be a consumer of knowledge but also a producer of knowledge which basically means you don't only accept the knowledge given to you but you also question it. How am I being a producer of knowledge? I am questioning the cultural differences between African American women and African women who grew up in the native West African countries and then migrated here ( and Europe) as adolescents. This matters not only to me, but to future posterity and  any one else who feels the need to be identified not just by name but also by culture and maybe race. This poem speaks to the heart about the color's of our skin and how it primarily affects our identity. If you haven't heard of Audre Lorde then you should!

Coal

I

Is the total black, being spoken

From the earth's inside.

There are many kinds of open.

How a diamond comes into a knot of flame   

How a sound comes into a word, coloured   

By who pays what for speaking.

Some words are open

Like a diamond on glass windows

Singing out within the crash of passing sun

Then there are words like stapled wagers

In a perforated book—buy and sign and tear apart—

And come whatever wills all chances

The stub remains

An ill-pulled tooth with a ragged edge.

Some words live in my throat

Breeding like adders. Others know sun

Seeking like gypsies over my tongue

To explode through my lips

Like young sparrows bursting from shell.

Some words

Bedevil me.

Love is a word another kind of open—

As a diamond comes into a knot of flame

I am black because I come from the earth's inside   

Take my word for jewel in your open light.