The New Speakers
(For Frieda)
Words are our trade
we speak them soft
we speak them hard
we do not push the hand
that writes, the times do that.
We are our age’s mouthpiece.
There is no need for words
to fester in our minds
they germinate in the open
mouth of the barefoot child,
in the midst of restive crowds.
They wither in ivory towers
and are dissected in college classes.
Words. Some come trippingly
on the palate. Some come laboriously.
Some are quickened by friends,
some prompted by passersby.
Critics label the speakers: male, female.
They assign genitals to our words
but we’re not just penises or vaginas
nor are our words easy to classify
Some of us are still hung-
up on the art-for-art trip
and feel that the poet
is forever alone.
Separate.
More sensitive.
An outcast.
That suffering is a way of life,
that suffering is a virture
that suffering is the price
we pay for seeing the future.
Some of us are still hung up
substituting words for relationships
substituting writing for living.
But what we want
–what we presume to want–
is to see our words engraved
on the people’s faces,
feel our words catalyze
emotions in their lives.
What we want is to become
part of the common consumption
like coffee with morning paper.
We don’t want to be
Stars but parts
of constellations.
Gloria Anzaldua, “The New Speakers," in The New Speakers: The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader, ed. AnaLouise Keating, pp. 24-25. Copyright 2009, The Gloria E. Anzaldua Literary Trust and AnaLouise Keating. All rights reserved. Republished by permission of the copyright holder, and the Publisher. www.dukeupress.edu.
Source: The New Speakers: The Gloria Anzaldua Reader (Duke University Press)