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Through their different uses of imagery and structure, they create their respective tones and take their respective (and different) approaches towards this problem of racism “Power” is an outcry at what is going on and has been going on with the African American peoples throughout the last four-hundred years: “they had dragged her 4´10´´ black woman’s frame/over the hot coals of four centuries of white male approval” (35,36). The lack of rhyme scheme is the vent of the outrage of the speaker. When we are mad (as mad as this speaker is), things become jumbled. We do not think in a normal way. Things that are usually normal are not so normal. The speaker is only consumed by the anger built up inside of it, and we see that by some of the things that it says, and by the overall construction of its poem. The difference of the structures of the stanzas is another thing that denotes this `action´ of anger, and the thought that the speaker is consumed by its anger and showing it. The speaker, in its state of anger, is not thinking of how many lines it is putting into each stanza. The poem is also thought about , but the words are spilling out of the speaker’s mouth in an anger ridden breakdown. The structure and almost regular meter of “Slim in Hell” shows that it is more of an organized and thought about poem. This organization is a result of the satire and wit involved in the poem. The speaker is attacking the concepts of racism using ridicule and his cleverness. The speaker is probably up to the point where the speaker of the other poem is at, but to attack racism so harshly in the 1930’s could have had severe consequences, possibly would have been put aside due to its radical content, or the speaker possibly thought that the problem is better attacked in this fashion. The speaker has the same feelings towards the idea of racism as the speaker in “Power”, but he is presenting his feeling in a different way, through satirical methods and a joke. In “Slim in Hell,” we have images of the white man gambling, getting drunk, and terrorizing blacks. “Lots of folks fightin’/At de roulette wheel” (57,58). “Showed him giant stills/Going everywhere/Wid a passel of devils,/Stretched dead drunk there” (73-76). “White devils wid pitchforks/Threw black devils on” (81,82). Through the images conjured up in these passages, we can see the gambling, drinking, and antagonizing of blacks by the white man. There are various passages that allude to the thought that the whites are devils, or the oppressors, if you take a deeper look at the passages. The “passel of devils” does not say that the whites are the devils, but the people being alluded to are the whites. A passage that directly says that the whites are the devils is “Den de devil gave Slim/De big Ha-Ha;/An’ turned into a cracker” (89-91). The word cracker here is significant of a white person. If we put together this mix of imagery, we get images of anger in a satirical sense. The imagery in “Power,” on the other hand, shows the speakers anger, powerlessness, and other images. The powerlessness is conveyed through the following passage, “...until she let go the first the first real power she ever had/and lined her own womb with cement/to make a graveyard for our children” (37-39). This is the lack of power of the black woman in the jury, of her not being able to make her own choice in the face of eleven white males. One of the more revolting images in the poem is the image of the child “a dead child dragging his shattered black/face of the edge of my sleep/blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders” (7-9). This disturbing image uses some very strong words to convey the image: shattered black face, blood, and punctured cheeks and shoulders. These are images of a black child, dead, due to a white policeman and these images cause one to be sick at the state (physically) of this child, and morally sick by the actions of this protector of the public. The tones of the two respective speakers are created by the uses of imagery and structure in the poems. In “Slim in Hell” the speaker has a satirical tone in a Southern black folk style. The use of “yo” instead of your, “dat” for that, “dis” for this, “fac” for fact, and many more. “Slim say-`Oh, jes´ thought/I´d drap by a spell´” (49-50). This is due to a few different objectives that the speaker wants to convey. Most importantly is to discuss the problem from the eyes of one of the many blacks, therefore the use of their particular style of writing. Using this particular dialect give the argument more weight, therefore attacking the problem in a better fashion. There is no tone of open anger in the whole of the poem, but there is a satirical tone of underlying anger. Through the satire of the poem, the speaker expresses its anger. The tone of the speaker in “Power” is one of anger, disgust, vengeful, it is the tone of someone who is sick of it all and wants to take something back. The poem starts off with the speaker talking about suicide and the killing of ones own children (which allude to anger, despair, powerlessness). It also shows a reason for the anger, “The policeman who shot down a 10-year-old in Queens/stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood/and a voice said `Die you little mother*censored*er ´ and/there are tapes to prove that” (21-24). The speaker’s tone of anger is showed continually throughout the poem. These two poems are similar in the way that they both compare the problem of racism in the U.S. We can also see an evolution of thought and feeling through the passage of time. As a result of time we can see where the Lorde poem stems from the Brown poem. The anger is also present at the time of Brown, but it has festered and is ready to explode in the generation of Lorde. It has been a load on the black race since before Brown and has continued up until now, past the time of Lorde (by 8 years). By the time that Lorde came to be, as a poet, the Civil Rights movement had already passed, and it was thought that certain freedoms had been achieved. As of yet, we still have many racial problems, and Lorde (along with many other blacks), have had enough. People like Brown have tried using peaceful and satirical methods to achieve what they deserve, but it still has not been achieved. Because of this, people like Lorde, are sick of it and see no other way besides using more violent means: and one day I will take my teenaged plug and connect it to the nearest socket and as I beat her senseless and set a torch to her bed.(45-49) Have we passed the time of organized, peaceful, or satirical ways of changing? If we don’t change are things going to explode with anger and be jumbled? Are our eyes going to see some revolting things? These two poems are what has happened and what could happen, and it is very easy to see the connection and evolution from the time of the first to the second, just as easy as it is to see the use of imagery and structure in relation to the tones of the poems. Are things going to have to come to this point of explosion where we will really find out if the pen is mightier than the sword? Brown, Sterling “Slim in Hell”. Heath Introduction to Literature. Eds. Alice S. Landy and William Rodney Allen. Sixth Edition. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, Lorde, Audre “Power”. Heath Introduction to Literature. Eds. Alice S. Landy and William Rodney Allen. Sixth Edition. Boston and New York: Houghton Bibliography: Word Count: 1408
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