Trinity

Carbon March 27, 2009

Audre Lorde’s poem “Coal” was very interesting to me in the way that she played with the chemical relationship between coal and diamonds and transposed that dichotomy to her own existence as a black woman.  The image turns on the fact that coal forms from the compression of carbon-rich remains of dead organisms, and when it is subjected to the extreme pressures deep in the earth its crystal structure realigns to form a perfectly-ordered diamond.  This is freighted with meaning in the context of the poem, as it speaks to her understanding of her heritage and her perception of conflicting attitudes about her, specifically her race.