Poetry Is Not a Luxury Summary and Analysis

In Poetry Is Not a Luxury, Audre Lorde seeks to define poetry as something vital and necessary to the human (especially female) condition rather than a leisure activity. To Lorde, poetry is the essence of womanhood, and the feelings poetry is so easily able to express are a direct link to ancient society. Lorde sees this ancient connection as a sort of antidote to the ills of modern life, which include an unhealthy focus on profit, linear power, and institutional dehumanization.

Lorde sees poetry as a step in the formation of ideas, rather than the expression of an already formed idea. Hopes and dreams are transformed into language through poetry, which then becomes a coherent idea that can be used to catalyze action. Poetry is equivalent to feeling rather than thinking and is...