The First Cities by Audre Lorde

The First Cities Reviews

• 
  Lara

  I'm actually reading
  The Collected Poems, which includes all of Lorde's books of poetry in order of publication, but as others have said they liked some books more than others, I figured I'd review each one on its own.
  
  So, before now I'd read
  Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches and
  Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, but never any of her poems. Since I love Lorde's prose so much though, I decided to just jump right into the deep end, even though generally poetry is a hard sell for me. I'm glad that I read her prose first, especially Zami, because I'm not sure how much I'd have gotten out of the poems without knowing some of the background behind them. At any rate, I think I'm definitely appreciating it much more knowing that background than I would have otherwise.
  
  While not all of the poems in this first collection of hers resonated with me, surprisingly more did than not, and I once again found myself kind of in awe of Lorde--there's something so evocative in the way she wrote, and I'm happy to find myself just as sucked into her poetry as her prose.
  
  Favorites in this book: Memorial II; Coal; Bridge Through My Windows; Second Spring; Gemini; Oaxaca; Father, the Year is Fallen; If You Come Softly; Return.
  
  And because one time I told a friend that all reviews of poetry should have actual poems in them, I'll include a short one:
  
  Father, the Year is Fallen
  
  Father, the year is fallen.
  Leaves bedeck my careful flesh like stone.
  One shard of brilliant summer pierced me
  And remains.
  By this only--unregenerate bone
  I am not dead, but waiting.
  When last warmth is gone
  I shall bear in the snow.
• 
  Natalie

  I’m actually reading her Collected Works, but considering each collection as a whole. This is her first collection, and it contains some that are astoundingly beautiful and evocative.
  
  My favorites from this collection:
  Coal
  What My Child Learns of the Sea
  Bridge Through My Windows
  To A Girl Who Knew What Side Her Bread Was Buttered On
  Pirouette
  Generation
  
  
  Her rhythm is glorious, especially in To a Girl. Many of her poems about children evoke imagery that brought me to tears. Lorde is a master word smith!
• 
  Tatiana

  I don't know how to review poetry so here's one of my favorite poems from this collection.
  
  To a girl who knew what side her bread was buttered on
  
  He, through the eyes of the first marauder
  saw her, his catch of bright thunder, heaping
  tea and bread for her guardian dead
  crunching the nut-dry words they said
  and, thinking the bones were sleeping.
  he broke through the muffled afternoon
  calling an end to their ritual's tune
  with lightning-like disorder:
  
  'Leave these bones, Love! Come away
  from their summer breads with the flavour of hay—
  your guards can watch the shards of our catch
  warming our bones on some winter's day!'
  
  Like an ocean of straws the old bones rose up
  Fearing his threat of a second death;
  and he had little time to wonder
  at the silence of bright thunder
  as, with a smile of pity and stealth,
  she buttered fresh scones for her guardian bones
  and they trampled him into the earth.
• 
  andré crombie

  "You did not clock the falling of the leaves
  The silent turning of the grass
  Nor see brief bright November
  Rising out of the hills.
  You came
  When the sun was set and the bough bent
  To find the curtness of winter
  The completed act.
  
  You may well say, but with little right
  "I never trusted autumn"
  Who never sought the root
  Of sharp October sorrel
  And flame red trees
  Or knew the wise and final peace
  Red-browning autumn brought
  To one whom you loved, and left
  To face the dark alone."
• 
  Magali

  Audre Lorde was very talented, she knew how to use words perfectly. Her poems made me feel lots of things. That's what makes great poetry in my opinion.
• 
  Lake

  Audre Lorde Community Seminar Reading #4
• 
  kiana

  I first read Lorde in the context of college coursework and Uses of the Erotic (1978). I wondered what it could look like to read these authors outside of the classroom and the realm of theorizing their words.. I am so happy I started with The First Cities (1968). There are ways I will never fully understand Lorde’s words, based on my own positionality, but what I read, I find myself reading over and over again with new interpretations and understanding. I found myself sitting after each poem, even the shorter ones, digesting it and absorbing her words, in ways that speak to the unmatched power with which Audre Lorde writes.
  
  I am nowhere near an expert on prose, but this collection invoked so many feelings in me. Sitting in the sun, visiting my hometown in the South, at this particular time in my life wherein I feel the universe pushing me to make big life changes, I needed Lorde’s poetry in this moment more than I thought, and I am so grateful for her.
• 
  morefiction

  Whilst I may have not loved this just as much as "The Black Unicorn", Lorde is still able to show her incredible talent and art, even in her first poetry collection.
  My favorites in this were:
  Memorial II
  Generation
  Suffer the Children
• 
  Chloe

  3.5
• 
  Aseel

  I need to reread this
• 
  Vendela

  “But lightning comes.” For that poem alone, this collection earns its place. I can’t quite put into words how much she means to me right now.
• 
  Lilly

  Favorite was 'If You Come Softly'
• 
  Amanda Graves

  I read this from the collected poems, this was her first collection.
• 
  Julia

  my personal favourites: "coal", "generation", "father, the year is fallen"
  
• 
  Adam Carrico

  Deserves a solid 4.5. Love the repeated use of autumn and thunderstorms.