Poetry Is Not a Luxury* Tue quatirY or ios by which we scrutinize our lives has dzec bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the change ing about through those lives. It is within hose ideas by which we pursue our magic and make it realized. This is poetry as illumination, for it is through poetry we give name to those ideas which are — until the poem — nameless and formless, about to be birthed, but already felt. That distillation of experience from which true poetry springs births thought as dream births concept, as feeling births idea, as knowledge births (precedes) understanding. ‘As we learn to bear the intimacy of scrutiny and to flourish as we learn to use the products of that scrutiny for power within our living, those fears which rule our lives and form our silences begin to lose their control over us. For each of us as women, there is a dark place within, where hidden and growing our true spirit rises, "beautiful/and tough as chestnut/stanchions against (yJour nightmare of weakness/"** and of impotence. These places of possibility within ourselves are dark because they are ancient and hidden; they have survived and grown strong through that darkness. Within these deep places, each oiled isc AMagineof Foe C0: 3097D {Fram ‘Black Mother Worn fe publahed in From A Land Where Osher {Lie Broadside Pre, Der, 1973), and collected in Chen Pers Old xd NO# (W.W. Norton and Company, New Yok, 1982) p33. Porrat Is Nor a Luxuny_37 iy and power, of ing. The woman's tenor surface; it uation to be experi more and more to cherish daily lives. As they become known to and accepted by us, and the honest explorat spawning grounds at the become a safe-house ee and the conceptualization of any meaningful actin, Right now, I could name at least ten ideas I would have foun intolerable or incomprehensible and fri came after dreams and poems. This is no disciplined attention to the true meaning of ‘We can train ourselves to respect out them into a language s0 they can be38_Sisten QuTsipeR ist, it is our poetry which hel language does nck ze bere ase and vision; it is the shelense erat lives. I lays the foundations for a future of fears of what has never been before, is not easy to sus. We can sometimes work long and hard head of eal cesintance ite deaths we only to have that beachhead assaulted or se pe Oe cance we have been socialized to fear, or by the withdrawal of those approvals that we have been warned rae aery, Women see ourselves diminished or softened toe ey bangn accusation ofcildshnes, of nonuniver Pia of changeabliy, of sensuality. And who asks the ques. sally: © altering your aura, your ideas, your dreams, or am 1 rely moving you to temporary and reactive action? And even though the latter is no mean task, it is one that must be seen aiehih the context of a need for true alteration of the very foun- dations of our The white fathers told us: I think, therefore I am. The Black mother within each of us ~ the poet — whispers in our dreams: 1 fel, therefore I can be free. Poetry coins the language to ex- press and charter this revolutionary demand, the implementa- tion of that freedom. ‘However, experience has taught us that action in the now is also necessary, always. Our children cannot dream unless they live, they cannot live unless they are nourished, and who else will feed them the real food without which their dreams will be ‘no different from ours? “If you want us to change the world fener, we tle bave to ve long enough to grow unt” herein we drag ourselves with dreams of new ideas. The i aoe el The brain alone will set us free. But there are roo Thee a eae ice win to save us as women, a5 tom, oes ra and forgotten ones, new combina- along with the renewed Tecognitions from within ourselves — constantly encourage ‘courage to try them out. And we must jal schon Ourselves and each other to attempt the at our dreams imply, and so many of our old ideas disparage. In the forefront of our move S ve toward cha there is only poetry to hint at possibiiey made re ee, formatace the implications of ourselves; wharwe in and dare make real (or bring action into accordance wi four hopes, our most cherished terrors, i by linear power, & ‘pastimes, feelings were expected to kr ‘thought as were expected r0 kneel to men, But women have . And there are no new pains. We have fel Peay. We have hidden chat fact in the same set = have hidden our power. They surface in our dreams, an¢ our dreams that point the way to freedom. Those di made realizable through our poems that give us the sti land courage to see, to feel, to speak, and to dare. If what we need to dream, to move our spirits most deeply and’ nted asa luxury, | directly toward and through promis then we give up the core ~ the fountain — of our power, our womanness; we give up the future of our worlds. For there are no new ideas. There are only new ways of mak- ing them felt — of examining what those ideas feel like being lived on Sunday morning at 7 A.M., after brunch, dur ild love, making war, giving birth, mourning our dead — suffer the old longings, battle the old warnings and fears of be- ent and impotent and alone, while we taste new ies and strengths.