Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"Harriet" by Audre Lorde serves as a striking testament to the complex tapestry of female relationships, racial identity, and the enduring effects of societal expectations on individual growth. Set against a backdrop where social norms dictate interaction, the poem brings into sharp focus the twin pulls of attraction and aversion, camaraderie and competition, between women of color.

In this text, the poetic voice speaks to Harriet, an old friend, exploring the fraught memories of their youth. Lorde evokes visceral images of "nappy girls quick as cuttlefish" to suggest the urgency and agility needed to navigate a society that labels them in various derogatory terms. Yet, despite the external forces working against them, it is the internal betrayal-learning "on the edge of a lash or a tongue" that respect meant keeping distance-that corrodes their friendship. The power of society to dictate their roles is thus internalized, leading them to see each other as enemies or rivals.

The poem, tinged with regret and nostalgia, marks the failure of the two women to transcend societal dictates. They were not just fighting societal stereotypes; they were fighting inherited ways of viewing each other that made solidarity almost impossible. "We learned to know lonely as the earth learns to know dead," the speaker notes, tying their emotional distance to an existential form of isolation, as pervasive and inescapable as mortality itself.

Lorde also draws attention to the names and identities they must adopt now that their "mother is gone." The absence of the mother figure, often a symbolic representation of origin and identity, makes their alienation even more acute. Who are they if not daughters, friends, or enemies molded by societal rules?

Within its lines, the poem encapsulates the internal struggle between longing for unity and the bitter realities that keep women, particularly women of color, apart. It also gives voice to the haunting question of how to name oneself in a world where names have often been given by others, often oppressively. In evoking Harriet, a name that itself rings with historical connotations of struggle and liberation, Lorde points to the tragic irony of women who could be powerful allies, yet find themselves unable to escape the societal roles that keep them isolated. It is a lament for lost potential, and an indictment of the structures that make such loss almost inevitable.

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