Audre Lorde was one of the most influential figures of her time and still today. Lorde’s powerful and prominent, sometimes angry, but always brilliant writings and speeches defined and inspired the American feminist, lesbian, African-American, and Women of Color movements of the 1970s and 1980s. Lorde expanded her influence in 1984 when she traveled to Berlin. From 1984 to 1992 Lorde made several trips to Berlin, teaching and sharing her stories and legacy to German society (Wilder 1). While in Berlin, Lorde helped Germans to discover the Afro-German identity movement.
Lorde documented her time spent in Berlin throughout her writing. In the poem, “Berlin Is Hard on Colored Girls”, we are able to read about her experiences in Berlin. Prior to Lorde’s time spent in Berlin, World War II had occurred. Upon arriving, Lorde had noted that she should feel the racial tension that haunted the streets of the city. Lorde stated, “The city itself is very different from what I’d expected. It is lively and beautiful, but its past is never very far away, at least not for me. The silence about Jews is absolutely deafening, chilling” (Wilder 1). With World War II and the Holocaust in the not so distant past, people were fearful, especially people of color. The reign of the Nazi’s was a mass racist hate crime that instilled fear into all races. Lorde however, saw their fear as a chance to spread her power and strength throughout Berlin. “Berlin Is Hard on Colored Girls” exemplifies the difficulties of finding a black woman’s love in the streets of West Berlin. It also embodies how she is able to connect and identify herself with Afro-Germans and women of color in Berlin. The poem begins with the line, “Perhaps a strange woman”(Lorde line 1). By starting the poem in this way, it is framed around this strange woman. Who is she? Why is she strange? Is she different? The poem suddenly becomes about identity and estrangement. But an important connection to make is that although the poem is about her observations of Berlin, it is also about Lorde herself. Throughout all of Lorde’s work, we have seen that Lorde is able to make connections to others by their differences and their struggles. She speaks out on her oppressions which allows others to feel that they are not alone. She became a voice for many different groups of people including: American feminists, lesbians, African-Americans, and Women of Color. None the less, in Berlin she was able to use her struggles to show Afro-Germans that they were not alone. Later in the first stanza, Lorde uses descriptive language such as “kittiwake birds, the lizard, gray whales” (Lorde lines 6,7,12). This is where we are able to make the connection of Lorde questioning her own identity along with Berlin’s. Berlin does not have kittiwake birds, the lizard, and gray whales, but Lorde’s non-U.S. home spaces in Grenada and Saint Croix do (Farber 152). It almost is as if Lorde is tracing back her roots, pondering herself and her past, where she’s from, where she’s been. Much like those in Berlin were doing at this time.
Moving onto the second stanza, Lorde begins with “I cross her borders at midnight” (Lorde line 16). Although Lorde never mentions the Berlin Wall specifically in this poem, she strategically divides her poem into two stanzas. Almost as the border she is referring to is the Berlin Wall which divides Berlin in two, and her poem into two stanzas. She does this in a way that highlights division, division of Berlin, division of the poem. She ends the poem with a reference of a nightingale, “A nightingale waits in the alley/next to the yellow phone booth”(Lorde lines 31-32). Nightingales when used in poetry such as “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats, have become a symbol for division: life or death, masculinity and femininity, silence and expression. The nightingale represents Berlin at this time (Farber 153). It was divided by the Berlin Wall and its people were also divided, as was Lorde. The people of Berlin were divided by race, fear, and gender. Lorde, who also struggled with these things, used it to connect to Afro-Germans. In doing so, she was able to help create the Afro-German identity movement. She was able to use her own struggles and connect with those around them. While studying Lorde throughout this course, I have been able to realize that Lorde takes her fears, insecurities, trauma, and oppressions and uses them to become powerful and strong. She created a voice for not only herself, but for those around her who needed someone such as Lorde to help right the injustices around them. Not only was she able to do this is America, she was able to help a struggling Berlin.
- As I stated in my post, Lorde finds the injustices, oppressions, and struggles around her to make connections with her audience. Do you feel that you share any injustices, oppressions, and struggles with Lorde?
- After reading “Berlin Is Hard on Colored Girls”, do you think that the “strange woman” is the Berlin Wall? Or an actual woman? (This is something I wondered while reading and thought hearing your comments would help me to understand!)
Work Cited:
Farber, Paul. “I Cross Her Borders at Midnight.” Audre Lorde’s Transitional Legacies, edited by Stella Bolaki and Sabine Broeck, 2015, pp. 152-153.
Lorde, Audre. Berlin Is Hard on Colored Girls, 1986.
Wilder, Charly. Audre Lorde’s Berlin, The New York Times, 19 Jul. 2019, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dn36LUZan6GgZHbFpxJouSBZmhvTWEK0/view. Accessed 15 Apr. 2020.
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Hi Hailie, I really liked your post it was really helpful for me to further understand the poem. I share similar experiences with Lorde which has made reading and learning about her more personal and I can understand how she has helped the women of Berlin because with the more I read about her, the better I understand my own experiences and how to not let that rule my life. “kittiwake birds, the lizard, gray whales” (6,7,12) where Lorde traces her roots, others can follow her example and do the same.
Hi, Hallie I really liked your blog post. I liked everything you said about Lorde’s experiences teaching in Berlin and your thoughts on her poem. As a young white woman I know I do not share any injustices, oppressions, and struggles as Lorde does, but I try to work through and understand what she is saying. I am more privileged than Lorde, but I always find that I’m wanting to understand what she is saying. When I read her poetry I always sit there and just take in what she is saying. I want to be able to be almost an ally and listen to what she has to say. I like how you broke down the idea of the nightingale because that is a way that I didn’t even think to think of the separation of two different people. Lorde states, “A nightingale waits in the alley/next to the yellow phone booth”. (31-34). I think it really shows that no matter what we all are looking for a way to connect with people wether if that’s because of gender, race, or even culturally. I also think beyond that it is ok to not find a connection between people.
Hi Katie! I also agree that I do not necessarily share the same injustices, oppressions, and struggles as Lorde. One of the only ones that I have in common with Lorde is the oppressions that we face as women. I really like how you used the word “ally”. Although we are not fighting the same fight, we still are able to listen and support Lorde and try to do our part as individuals to stop these injustices.
Hi Hailie, thank you for your thoughts on “Berlin is Hard on Colored Girls”. You highlighted and explained the imagery in this poem really well! I was thinking about the duality in this poem. From (the now historical context of) the Berlin Wall and the African imagery mixed into German landscapes, this poem is centered on division. For someone like Lorde who spent her childhood in between two identities, her parent’s home in Grenada and her American life, that sort of division is not new to her. She clearly recognized the tension, “the silence about Jews is absolutely deafening, chilling” (Wilder 1). I think that her experience with duality and division would have helped her empathize with the Afro-German girls, “it means my pleasure at seeing another Black woman walk into my classroom, her reticence slowly giving way as she explores a new self-awareness, gains a new way of thinking of herself…” (Lorde “Foreward” vii). Looking at Lorde’s teaching materials and some student testimonials it is clear that she wanted her students to look at themselves at the world around them, her work in Berlin is no different.
Hi Megan! I really enjoyed your comment because even though I did not speak much on the duality, you did! I tried to highlight points in the poem such as the division of two stanzas, the Berlin Wall dividing the city in two. Lorde uses imagery of her home in Grenada in this poem. When I first read the poem I was a little confused as to why she put in images of tropical things when she was in Berlin. But, I then realized she was trying to portray her two selfs, her two identities.
I really loved your post, you definitely put in a lot of time and effort to understand this poem. You asked if “we” as a class thought the strange woman was a metaphor for the Berlin Wall. I am unsure. I personally took the woman as the spirit of Berlin’s colored woman. Their unafraid and non-fearful self. I take it this way just because the character seems to have this almost whimsical, vaporous feel to her. Like at any second she can be swept away by the wind.
Hi Hallie, I have to say, I was wondering what exactly was happening in Lorde’s poem “Berlin Is Hard on Colored Girls” and your second discussion question posed the same confusion I had. I would say that I believe the woman in the poem is a personified Berlin. Lorde discusses things familiar to her with a hint of absurdity that felt as if her experiences in Germany are reminiscent of the sense of home showcased by references to Caribbean life. Lorde stating, “she is speaking my tongue/ in a different tempo”, made me believe this personification of Berlin allows a sense of familiarity to be drawn through making a city, into a woman that speaks the same as Lorde albeit slightly differently.
Hey Hailie,
I often wondered why Lorde went to Berlin prior to this portion of the class. I’ve been very curious of the ways in which racism translates to other cultures and I am very glad we get the opportunity to study it in places such as Berlin. World War II was one of the most racially driven, mass genocide in our history and the fact that Lorde traveled there so shortly after these events speaks to her strength, courage, and will to change the world. Lorde empathizes with the Afro-german community of Berlin due to their separation from their homeland and the lack of voice they experience in German society. This thought is emphasized in the poem, “Berlin is Hard on the Colored Girls”, as she states, “she is speaking my tongue/ in a different tempo (10-11, Lorde)”. This poem not only grants praise to Afro-German women for daring to be unique in such scary and trying times, but also, grants recognition to a race of women who have faced historical erasure.
Hi Cody! I agree that studying Lorde in Berlin gave us the opportunity to look at racism in other cultures. I think it translates to a bigger issue, racism is not something that is isolated in America, it is a global issue. I really like how you said, “This poem not only grants praise to Afro-German women for daring to be unique in such scary and trying times..”. I never thought of the poem in that way. I think a lot of the time we think of Lorde’s poems as dark because of the style of writing she uses to talk about such serious issues. But by saying she is praising Afro-German women for daring to be unique puts a different perspective and connotation on the poem.
Hi Hallie,
Thank you for your input on this Lorde text, it was truly insightful! To answer your second discussion question, I truthfully am unsure. I interpreted that the woman in the poem is a German colored woman, though after reading everyone’s replies I am uncertain because everyone has brought up such good interpretations! The reason I feel it is a German woman of color is due to lines 10 and 11 where Lorde writes, “she is speaking my tongue / in a different tempo”. This line to me, seems to be that this woman is speaking of the injustices that she faces, but “in a different tempo” means that she faces different circumstances of injustices being that she is German and not American. I feel the stanza that follows is poetically giving examples of those differences between the poet and “her”.
Hey Hailie, I really enjoyed reading your blog post. Regarding if I feel I share any connections to the oppression, injustices and struggles that surround Lorde, I feel I do and I don’t. The injustices she faces are quite different than the ones I face. She lived in a society that did not support women of color nor did they support her sexual orientation, meanwhile I live in a society that gives people of my color (white) privileges and throws sexual orientation (heterosexual) in everyone’s faces. Although I do not face those same struggles that she does, I have faced injustices regarding my gender orientation and how I am built, being relatively petite with a lack of feminine physique I have been told I am not “woman” enough to have an opinion as a woman. So I have faced what I might consider similar struggles but definitely not the exact struggles that Lorde faced.
After reading everyone’s comments on my post and hearing their observations and analysis I was able to understand parts of the poem I did not before. In, “Berlin Is Hard on Colored Girls”, I was unsure if the strange woman was a personified Berlin Wall or an actual Afro-German women. After reading the comments I am honestly still not sure how I feel about this. Reading Savannah’s, Mikey’s, and Gabriele’s comment, I enjoyed all of their interpretations. Although all three comments had a different perspective, I think that adds to the duality of the poem. Megan really highlighted the idea of duality throughout the poem in her comment. I think Lorde adds to the duality of the poem by leaving the identity of the strange woman up to interpretation. The poem can be read in two different ways when the strange woman is the Berlin Wall, or an Afro-German woman.
Many of the comments were focused around the quote, “she is speaking my tongue / in a different tempo”(lines 10-11). These lines seemed to stand out amongst my classmates. I too, believe these are very powerful lines. As Cody mentioned, racism is not something that is stricken to one country. This poem, and those lines specifically, drives that point. The strange woman was speaking on the same injustices, oppressions, and struggles that Lorde speaks on, just in a different language.
I also really enjoyed how Cody described the poem as, “This poem not only grants praise to Afro-German women for daring to be unique in such scary and trying times, but also, grants recognition to a race of women who have faced historical erasure.” Lorde writes on such hard hitting issues, that a lot of the time, she uses dark situations, word choice, and imagery to really get her point across. To me, this poem had a sense of entrapment, isolation, and wartime because of her use of the words “war”, “guards”, “border”. But Cody’s comment made me look at the poem differently. It can also be read as a poem that praising German women of color for being so daring, brave, and unique. I think this again adds to the duality of the poem.
In my first discussion question I asked if anyone could relate to the issues that Lorde focuses her work around. In asking this question, I hoped to do something that Lorde is very good at doing. Lorde takes injustices, oppressions, and her struggles and uses them to join groups of people together. Marian, Sam, and Katie replied to this question. Marian and Sam agreed that they feel some of the same oppressions that Lorde faced. Katie although said she does not, she said she tries to be an “ally” to Lorde. This really stuck out to me. I had never thought about it in this way before. Even though some of us can not relate to Lorde, we are still here to listen, support, and do what we can to change the injustices that Lorde and others face.
Hi Hailie,
I really liked your blog post and it brought up many good points. I also made the connection with “Ode to a Nightingale” but I wasn’t so sure if I was right, but I’m glad to see someone else made the same connection. Personally, I do find that Lorde’s poetry speaks to me throughout many volumes. She is a Lesbian woman of color, as I am too. Her parents are immigrants, just like mine; we both struggle with clashing ideals that defy our parents and cultural norms. Being a woman of color in a traditional family environment can pose a difficult experience going up because there’s a difficulty having to grow up “Americanized” vs. how parents want to raise you to not lose your cultural roots. Two identities that clash and at times our American society isn’t very welcoming with due to xenophobia and racism. There have been many cases where people speaking another language rather than English will be told “Speak English, this is America” or “Go back to your country.” Lorde speaks out on embracing your roots and your traditional aspect (that make a positive impact on you) rather than to give in to discriminatory actions thrown at individuals. A question I have been pondering is what would Audre Lorde’s take on people ‘decolonizing’ themselves be?