Postcolonial Love Poem

Natalie Diaz

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2020

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

“Postcolonial Love Poem” has no rhyme, meter, or conventional form. The single 41-line stanza initially reads as a stream-of-conscious meditation, yet the poem’s technical use of language reveals the skill on display. Diaz’s rejection of classical forms supports her poem’s postcolonial themes and her desire to center the Indigenous experience.

Antithesis and Paradox

Diaz uses antithesis and paradox to express the contradictions of her experience.

Antithesis is the juxtaposition of two opposites to create a contrasting effect. For example, the speaker “wage[s] love and worse” (Line 6). Their sexual intimacy is described as “pleasure to hurt” (Line 15). Love is reimagined as a negative in these juxtapositions.

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Paradox is a contradictory idea that ultimately contains an unexpected truth. The speaker “learned Drink in a country of drought” (Line 14). This contrast between the word and the culture underscores the emptiness of the promises of the colonialist culture. The ongoing conflict of living as an Indigenous woman in America is described as “the war never ended and somehow begins again” (Line 41). While colonialism began in the past, it is still ongoing, and the effects are felt even more deeply because of the paradox.

Metaphor and Simile

Metaphors and similes are types of comparison. Metaphors say that the two things being compared are the same, using the “to be” verb. Similes suggest that the two things are alike, but they use the words “like” and “as.”

Diaz makes extensive use of metaphor. Many of her metaphors connect to nature. The bruises are “a cabochon” (Line 16). The speaker is a “culebra” (Line 29). Her lover’s hips are “two rose-horned rams” (Line 32). By strongly connecting her subject to nature, Diaz draws upon her heritage to infuse the poem with her culture and to reject the violent images of the colonialist culture. In contrast with the settler-colonialist understanding of nature as a commodity, Diaz connects her speaker to nature. The multiple comparisons reflect the complexity and nuance of the speaker and her relationship.

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Diaz uses two similes, and both highlight an unexpected contrast. The “seeds” of hope “sleep like geodes” (Line 22) in the speaker. Rather than being filled with life and possibility, the seed is hard and lifeless. By using a simile to compare them, she reveals her despair while expressing how she is not completely hopeless. In Line 40, the speaker describes how the speaker and her lover touch each other’s “bodies like wounds.” Unlike the initial description of the wound as an injury on a body, the whole body has now become like the wound itself, reflecting her trauma.