Lorde's Hypnotic Undersong

Hurricane-inspired and filled with love, pain and history, Audre Lorde's last book of passionate verse underscores why her strong voice will continue to reverberate into the decade and beyond. Undersong contains revised versions of most of the pieces from Chosen Poems, a 1982 collection, as well as nine new poems. This new book serves as a testament to Lorde's role as both a revolutionary spirit and an accomplished artist.

Lorde, who died in December, explains here her process of revision which was inspired by the destruction of her home in St. Croix, Virgin Islands by Hurricane Hugo in 1989. In her introduction, she writes that in revising she kept two questions before her: "first, What did I want my readers to feel? and second, What was the work of this poem (its task in the world)?" The varying answers to these questions are apparent in every poem; a passion and sense of history shine through like "a molten hot light."

Lorde's poems on Blackness and womanhood as well as the specific references to historical events places Undersong not only within the context of Lorde's full life but within the greater context of America over the last thirty years. The book's final poem, entitled "Need: A Chorale for Black Woman Voices" takes the form of a dialogue between the poet and two Black women beaten to death in two American cities in the late seventies. The poet's closing words are "How much of this truth can I bear/ to see/ and still live/ unblinded?/ How much of this pain can I use?"

This book gives evidence of some of Lorde's most persistent themes, especially those of pain and blood. These last lines suggest that she is aware of her role as voice for that collective anguish. In all of these poems, Lorde uses that pain to create an emotional intensity that makes her stark lines cry out in anger. Despite the eloquence of the language and the almost hypnotising rhythm and minimal punctuation, the poems stir up a sense of defiance and even frightening hurt. Lines like "as, with a smile of pity and stealth,/ she buttered fresh scones/ for her guardian bones/ as they trampled him into the earth," which place violence next to seemingly harmless images, abound in these poems.

The word "blood" appears in many poems in all four of the sections into which Undersong is divided and creates a link between the violence she depicts and her emphasis on birth and children. Children continually appear, especially in the later poems, as pupils whom the poet-teacher Lorde instructs. They reinforce the image of the woman-mother as a central and strong figure. In one poem "Dear Toni Instead of a Letter of Congratulation Upon Your Book and Your Daughter Whom You Say You Are Raising to be a Correct Little Sister," Lorde, as mother-teacher-writer, addresses another mother-teacher-writer.

Images of other blood connections between women, especially that between sisters, appear regularly in the pieces; together, the works produce an overall sense of "woman power". With titles like "A Poem for a Woman in Rage" (one of the new poems), "For My Singing Sister" "Relevant is Different Points on the Circle", "Black Mother Woman" and "The Woman Thing," Lorde's pieces serve as fiery social commentary.

Despite the phrases which teach, even instruct, and despite the powerful anger these poems convey, their most striking element is love. Almost every poem ends with a phrase describing a healing, embattled love: "but the night was dark/ and love was a burning fence/ about my house," she writes at the end of "Gemini." "Quiet love hangs/ in the door of my house/ a sheet of brick-caught silk/ rent in the sun" concludes "Echo", also written in the 1950s. But "Dreams Bite", written in 1968, ends "I shall love/ again/ when I am obsolete."

The uplifting anger, the emphasis on Black woman-mother, the perseverance of love; these concerns unify Undersong so that it can be read straight through as one whole, as a testament to a life's work and the wisdom and experience necessary to be able to alter that work slightly. As Lorde writes in her poem "Conclusion", "I believe in love as I believe in our children/ but I was born Black and without illusion/ and my vision/ which differs from yours/ is clear/ although sometimes restricted."