Audre Lorde's The First Cities … is a quiet, introspective book. You first notice the striking phrases: "the crash of passing sun," "a browning laughter," "the oyster world." Then you notice the images, most of them drawn from nature, a source unusual in this age of urban poets who write of concrete and machines.

But Audre Lorde is not a nature poet. Her focus is not on nature, but on feelings and relationships. The nature images, many of them pertaining to the seasons, illustrate inner weather, the changes of love or feelings….

She does not wave a black flag, but her blackness is there…. (p. 13)