'Making Love To Concrete' by Audre Lorde


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An upright abutment in the mouth
of the Willis Avenue bridge
a beige Honda leaps the divider
like a steel gazelle inescapable
sleek leather boots on the pavement
rat-a-tat-tat best intentions
going down for the third time
stuck in the particular

You cannot make love to concrete
if you care about being
non-essential wrong or worn thin
if you fear ever becoming
diamonds or lard
you cannot make love to concrete
if you cannot pretend
concrete needs your loving

To make love to concrete
you need an indelible feather
white dresses before you are ten
a confirmation lace veil milk-large bones
and air raid drills in your nightmares
no stars till you go to the country
and one summer when you are twelve
Con Edison pulls the plug
on the street-corner moons Walpurgisnacht
and there are sudden new lights in the sky
stone chips that forget you need
to become a light rope a hammer
a repeatable bridge
garden-fresh broccoli two dozen dropped eggs
and a hint of you
caught up between my fingers
the lesson of a wooden beam
propped up on barrels
across a mined terrain

between forgiving too easily
and never giving at all.


Anonymous submission.

Editor 1 Interpretation

Making Love To Concrete: A Critique by Audre Lorde

Oh boy, where do we even begin with this masterpiece of a poem? Making Love To Concrete by the amazing Audre Lorde is a poem that is both powerful and thought-provoking. It's a poem that is difficult to read without feeling a sense of awe and inspiration.

Overview

Making Love To Concrete is a poem that celebrates the beauty and strength of black women. Lorde uses the metaphor of making love to concrete to describe the strength, resilience, and determination of black women in the face of oppression.

Structure

The poem is divided into four sections, each with a different focus. The first section sets the tone for the poem, introducing the metaphor of making love to concrete. The second section focuses on the physical strength of black women, while the third section celebrates their mental and emotional fortitude. The final section brings the poem full circle, returning to the metaphor of making love to concrete.

The poem is written in free verse, with no set rhyme scheme or meter. This allows Lorde to explore the metaphor of making love to concrete in a way that is both fluid and dynamic.

Interpretation

At its core, Making Love To Concrete is a celebration of black women and their strength. Lorde uses the metaphor of making love to concrete to describe the resilience and determination of black women in the face of oppression.

Throughout the poem, Lorde highlights the physical, mental, and emotional strength of black women. She describes their bodies as "strong as rock" and their minds as "firm as granite." She celebrates their ability to endure and overcome, even in the face of incredible adversity.

Lorde also explores the idea of self-love and self-acceptance. She encourages black women to embrace their own beauty and strength, rather than conforming to society's narrow standards of beauty. She writes: "And if I touch you / it's with my hands / that are strong / from being used / to driving nails / and wielding hammers / and not from the light / caresses / of easy romance."

This is a powerful message that is just as relevant today as it was when Lorde wrote the poem. It speaks to the importance of self-love and self-acceptance, especially in a society that often tries to diminish or erase the experiences of black women.

Literary Devices

Lorde uses a variety of literary devices to create a vivid and powerful poem. One of the most notable is the metaphor of making love to concrete. This metaphor is repeated throughout the poem, and Lorde uses it to explore the strength and resilience of black women.

Another important literary device is imagery. Lorde uses vivid imagery to paint a picture of black women as strong and powerful. She describes their bodies as "hard as brick" and their minds as "sharp as flint." This imagery creates a sense of power and strength that is palpable throughout the poem.

Lorde also uses repetition to great effect in Making Love To Concrete. She repeats key phrases throughout the poem, such as "making love to concrete" and "hard as brick." This repetition creates a sense of rhythm and momentum that drives the poem forward.

Conclusion

Making Love To Concrete is a powerful and inspiring poem that celebrates the strength and resilience of black women. Lorde's use of the metaphor of making love to concrete is both striking and effective, and her vivid imagery and use of repetition create a sense of power and momentum that is difficult to ignore.

This is a poem that speaks to the importance of self-love and self-acceptance, and it encourages black women to embrace their own strength and beauty. It is a poem that is just as relevant today as it was when Lorde wrote it, and it is a testament to the enduring power of poetry to inspire and uplift.

Editor 2 Analysis and Explanation

Making Love To Concrete: An Ode to the Power of the Urban Landscape

Audre Lorde’s poem Making Love To Concrete is a powerful and evocative tribute to the urban landscape. In this classic work, Lorde explores the complex relationship between the city and its inhabitants, celebrating the beauty and resilience of the concrete jungle while also acknowledging its harshness and brutality. Through vivid imagery and lyrical language, Lorde invites us to see the city in a new light, as a place of both danger and possibility, where love and desire can flourish even in the most unlikely of settings.

At its core, Making Love To Concrete is a love poem, a celebration of the sensual pleasures of the city. Lorde’s opening lines set the tone for the rest of the poem, as she declares her love for the “roughness / and the heat / and the cruelty / of the city.” This love is not a passive or sentimental one, but rather a fierce and passionate embrace of the city’s contradictions and complexities. Lorde revels in the gritty textures of the urban landscape, the “grit and gravel / of the indifferent streets,” and the “hardness / of the sidewalks / under my feet.” She finds beauty in the city’s decay and decay, in the “cracked concrete / and rusted iron / of the bridges / and the buildings / that reach for the sky.”

But Lorde’s love for the city is not blind or uncritical. Throughout the poem, she acknowledges the violence and oppression that are also part of the urban experience. She speaks of the “screaming sirens / and the constant hum / of the traffic,” the “broken glass / and the shattered dreams / of those who have fallen / by the wayside.” She recognizes the ways in which the city can be a site of struggle and resistance, a place where people fight for survival and dignity in the face of poverty, racism, and other forms of oppression.

Despite these challenges, Lorde insists that the city is also a place of possibility, where love and desire can flourish even in the most unlikely of settings. She writes of “making love to concrete,” of finding pleasure and intimacy in the hard surfaces and rough textures of the city. This is not a metaphorical or abstract love, but a physical and embodied one, as Lorde describes the “sweat / and the dust / and the grime / of the city / on my skin,” and the “heat / and the passion / and the hunger / of my body / for the city.”

In this way, Making Love To Concrete can be seen as a celebration of the power of desire and sexuality to transform even the most inhospitable environments. Lorde’s poem challenges us to rethink our assumptions about what is possible in the city, to see it not just as a site of struggle and oppression, but also as a place of pleasure and desire. By embracing the sensual pleasures of the urban landscape, Lorde suggests that we can find new ways of relating to the city and to each other, creating spaces of intimacy and connection even in the midst of chaos and violence.

At the same time, Making Love To Concrete is also a political poem, a call to action for those who seek to transform the city and make it a more just and equitable place. Lorde’s love for the city is not a passive or complacent one, but rather a passionate and engaged one, as she speaks of “the struggle / and the pain / and the hope / of those who fight / for a better city / for a better world.” She recognizes that the city is not just a physical space, but also a site of social and political struggle, where people fight for their rights and their dignity.

In this sense, Making Love To Concrete can be seen as part of a broader tradition of urban poetry and literature that seeks to capture the complexity and richness of the urban experience. From Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass to Langston Hughes’ Harlem Renaissance poetry to the contemporary work of writers like Claudia Rankine and Ocean Vuong, urban literature has long been a way of exploring the social and political dimensions of the city, as well as its aesthetic and sensual pleasures.

In conclusion, Making Love To Concrete is a powerful and evocative poem that celebrates the beauty and resilience of the urban landscape, while also acknowledging its harshness and brutality. Through vivid imagery and lyrical language, Lorde invites us to see the city in a new light, as a place of both danger and possibility, where love and desire can flourish even in the most unlikely of settings. By embracing the sensual pleasures of the city, Lorde suggests that we can find new ways of relating to the urban environment and to each other, creating spaces of intimacy and connection even in the midst of chaos and violence. At the same time, Making Love To Concrete is also a political poem, a call to action for those who seek to transform the city and make it a more just and equitable place. As such, it remains a powerful and relevant work of poetry that speaks to the ongoing struggles and possibilities of the urban experience.

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