{"id":255,"date":"2022-09-17T02:11:19","date_gmt":"2022-09-17T02:11:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/queerreading\/?p=255"},"modified":"2022-09-17T02:11:20","modified_gmt":"2022-09-17T02:11:20","slug":"prompt-2-olivia-ralston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/queerreading\/prompt-2-olivia-ralston\/","title":{"rendered":"Prompt 2 – Olivia Ralston"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sometimes we drug ourselves with dreams of new ideas. The head will save us. The brain alone will set us free. But there are no new ideas still waiting in the wings to save us as women, as human. There are only old and forgotten ones, new combinations, extrapolations and recognitions from within ourselves, along with the renewed courage to try them out. And we must constantly encourage ourselves and each other to attempt the heretical actions our dreams imply and some of our old ideas disparage. In the forefront of our move toward change, there is only our poetry to hint at possibility made real. Our poems formulate the implications of ourselves, what we feel within and dare make real (or bring action into accordance with), our fears, our hopes, our most cherished terrors.”<\/p>Poetry is not a Luxury – Audre Lorde <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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To me, Lorde is trying to speak to women in general. She is trying to communicate to them the vitalness of keeping their emotions and not losing to the idea of what they should be or what they can become. She emphasizes that by losing emotions, cuts off a vital portion of what it means to be human, and more specifically, what it means to be a woman. She does this through her word choice; she talks about the idea of \u201chead saving us\u201d and \u201cbrain alone will set us free\u201d being \u201cdrugs.\u201d She uses this to increase the urgency of her message to women and makes the importance of poetry to being a woman. She also uses \u201cheretical\u201d and \u201cdisparage,\u201d talking about how the world will try to discourage women\u2019s creativity and how women need to support each other in being creative. These words emphasize how harsh the world can be to creative women and further stress how important her message truly is. It also invokes the cultural context of the Spanish Inquisition and the Witch hunts of the past, and the intense persecution different groups of people and especially women, experienced.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key: To me, what makes the most sense about the passage is the sense of urgency conveyed through her word choice. This work is a call to action to implore women not to let the world (more specifically older men) discourage or disparage their efforts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lock: Something I sometimes struggle with in Lorde\u2019s piece is she tends to be really wordy. This extra length forces me to reread it and also causes some confusion to me. For example, I do not fully understand how \u201cThere are only old\u2026  courage to try them out\u201d fully relates to the passage. This means I could be missing out on the author’s meaning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes we drug ourselves with dreams of new ideas. The head will save us. The brain alone will set us free. But there are no new ideas still waiting in the wings to save us as women, as human. There are only old and forgotten ones, new combinations, extrapolations and recognitions from within ourselves, along… Continue reading Prompt 2 – Olivia Ralston<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8008,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/queerreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/queerreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/queerreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/queerreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/queerreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/queerreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":257,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/queerreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions\/257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/queerreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/queerreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/queerreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}