In the essay, “Poetry is not a Luxury,” Audre Lorde describes poetry as “a vital necessity of our existence” that “forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change.” According to Lorde, poetry allows writers, specifically Black women, to realize and express their dreams, giving them “the strength and courage to see, to feel, to speak, and to dare.” Although Lorde's impetus towards poetry is focused on Black women, her rejection of male European viewpoints extends her message to all marginalized from Vietnam, discusses in the poem “Not Even This.” Vuong captures the visceral reality of marginalized experiences by exploring the devaluation of identity, the impacts of American exceptionalism, …show more content…
The pen tip jabbed in my back, I feel the mark of progress” (Lines 1-3). The abruptness of the first line makes the sarcastic tone of the following lines clear. The jarring transition from “fag” to “checkbox” illustrates not only the evolution of societal attitudes towards queer identities, but also the reduction of these complex identities to simplified categories. The juxtaposition of “feel the mark of progress” with the painful image of the “pen tip jabbed in my back” expresses the double-edged sword of visibility. This visibility, while marking progress, also risks trivializing the complexities of queer identities. The sarcastic tone highlights the contradictions between claims of progress and the lived experiences of queer individuals and allows the reader to share in this discomfort. These lines reflect the fears of Cathy J. Cohen in “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens,” where she is primarily concerned with “those individuals who consistently activate only one characteristic of their identity, or a single perspective of consciousness, to organize their politics” (440). Cohen warns against enacting politics solely based on identity, as it can ignore the intersecting systems of power that affect people’s lives and risk viewing groups as a monolithic