Responding to Lorde - Gabriel

Language is a very subtle way to attract an audience. As writers, making ourselves relatable to an audience does not solely rest on the topic or argument we are presenting, but on the way we chose to address the audience.

As a female writer, Lorde addresses issues of women in her poetry. ‘’Poetry is not a Luxury’’, describes how women need poetry in order express themselves. One could easily argue that Lorde’s female audience is defined by the topic and argument she presents, to which I strongly agree; however I believe that the reason this is so successful is by the delicate placement of pronouns.

Lorde attracts women to the essay, by addressing the reader in the female category, therefore making herself relatable. The opening line of the second paragraph, ‘‘For each of us women’’, demonstrates the particular readers that Lorde expects of this essay. The use of ‘‘us’’ makes her argument the reader’s problem; and it is the use of subtle pronouns like that, which draw in the female audience.

When reading ‘’Poetry is not a luxury’’, we see that excessiveness of Lorde’s language manipulation; in some cases Lorde does not even use correct tenses. ‘’Women see ourselves’’, does not make sense as a phrase but is the only way Lorde can avoid alienating women (as the correct phrase would be ‘Women see themselves’). I think errors like these are done purposefully in order to force the reader to stop and think about Lorde’s passion to always be associated with Women.

Most of the language Lorde uses, is far subtler than these purposeful errors. Whenever she discusses women, she uses ‘’we’’. The use of this tiny word is deceptively powerful in convincing her female audience of the argument. One the best examples of this is, ‘’Poetry is the way we help give name to nameless so it can be thought’’. The subtle drop of ‘we’, rather than ‘I’, ‘you’, or ‘they’, is crucial in the successfulness of Lordes argument, as it groups together and seperates women from all others.

For us men, the use of these pronouns makes Lorde and her topic alien and un-relatable. However, this essay is not a case of ‘Us and Them’. The usefulness of grouping people together makes them more involved, as it is something that they hold for their own. Although I am not in Lorde’ targeted audience, the effectiveness of the pronouns exemplified in ‘’Poetry is not a luxury’’, should be used by all of us as a template for how to attract and involve an audience.