The prayer ritual is immediately signaled in the poems opening line with the words For those of us who. This phrase, which also appears at the beginning of stanza 2, creates a solemn mood, alerting the reader that a hallowed ritual is being performed. Even their spoken words may lose their significance of sound or may not elicit welcoming responses. When I wrote my first poem, I was in high school and I was a mess. The situation is so uncertain that they are unsure of their silence. Photo by Salimah Ali. We are individuals. Vulnerable people have learned to keep their heads down in the hope of protecting themselves and their loved ones, the speaker argues, yet such silence only serves to maintain their oppression. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as follows: An appointed form of public prayer, usually of a penitential character, consisting of a series of supplications, deprecations, or intercessions in which the clergy lead and the people respond, the same formula of response being repeated for several successive clauses. Certainly, Lordes call utilises the same formula at the beginning of its first two stanzas (For those of us ), and if we regard Lorde, or her speaker, as the clergy in this secular litany, the clergy are leading and the people other marginalised people are being invited to respond. Through the context of A Litany for Survival, and with knowledge of Lordes prior works, one can assume this group refers to any that has been marginalized and experienced suffering in their effort to find a place in the world. The second stanza is shorter than the first, containing only ten lines. In the present, they are forced to express love cautiously at inopportune timesin the hours between dawns/ looking inward and outward/ at once before and afterbecause security is not possible. The speaker states clearly that they are living in uncertain situations where even having bread is a cause of uncertainty. The collective voice emanating from each phrase crescendos into a mystical incantation that finally breaks through to the realization that fear has caused them to be silentbut their silence never eliminated their fear.
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