M. NourbeSe Philip's "Discourse on the Logic of Language"

Philip’s poem is a multifaceted comment on language and the power it holds in colonial (and post-colonial) contexts. Historically, the English language has been used as a tool for the oppression of colonized peoples, frustrating self-realization and identity formation within the context of a foreign English framework. Philip subverts the conventional English poetic form in her use of various fonts, changing the orientation of words on the page, and including sections of very different diction styles to emphasize the polyvocal nature of the piece. When performed live, these seperate sections often overlap: the stream–of-consciousness description competes with and is often drowned out by clinical descriptions portrayed in a male, English voice. As well as critiquing language as a tool for the oppression of colonized, Philip also comments on the patriarchal and singular nature of linguistic meaning and how it also serves to marginalize women. This discussion and the techniques used inspired a spoken poetry/slam piece that I wrote in conjunction with another creative individual discussing sexist rhetoric and systemic oppression of women in a patriarchal (language) system. In this piece, we emulated the polyvocal nature of Philips’ poem by including clinical, “proper” descriptions as well as more fluid, stream-of-consciousness sections. Because we had two voices to work with, we were able to overlap words and sections and vocal tones in the performance of the piece. The different voices are denoted by A and B in the following excerpts of the 8 minute-long piece:

AB What's in a name? A That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet
...

B Woman. noun. derived from the Old English wifman meaning, naturally, wife of man. Later forms include wifmon and wimmon whose usage continued until the 15th century. By 1200 CE the rounding of wi- to wu- was clearly established and at that time characteristic of Middle English texts
...

A mother tongue tied by father time.
An other tongue speaks the
la-laa-language
...

B she is given the seeds to sow
Eve’s seductive, destructive apple
echoing Adam (A ADAM)
Adam’s apple speaks his story
Herstory is extra (A ordinary)
woman is man but twisted
AB a footnote B of woe in the tale that defines mankind
A kindly
AB The limits of our language are the limits of our world

The poem finishes with an emotional build-up of the two voices competing for space, voice A repeating “The limits of our language are the limits of our world” while voice B runs through a mash-up of the following words and their definitions:

Manpower –power in terms of people
Manufacture –the making or producing of anything
Manipulate –to manage or influence skilfully
Manoeuvre--action requiring dexterity and skill
Manage–to take charge, or care of
Manhood–the state of being human