The difference between poetry and rhetoric / is being ready to kill / yourself / instead of your children.”
-- Speaker (Lines 1 – 4)

Importance: These lines open “Power” and are clearly important in framing the main concerns of the poem. It is a philosophical meditation on language, on the difference between poetry and rhetoric, and the different uses to which they can be put. In one way, poetry can be used to metaphorically “kill / yourself,” stripping oneself of one’s own illusions and false hopes in order to see the truth of the world. To “kill / yourself” could also refer to de-centering the frame of the individual, looking beyond one’s own selfish concerns to see the systemic problems that affect others, especially in terms of race. Rhetoric refers to killing “your children” because it is dangerous, relies on generalizations and stereotypes, and is mobilized by the white police officer to justify his senseless murder of the innocent...