For Each of You
This is an instructional poem. From one who has lived and made mistakes and learned, Lorde is telling others what works for her, what she's learned. Some seems like common sense advice, but much of it is emboldening. Lorde almost seems to be giving her readers permission to do something nobody says you can do: what you want. Among her encouragement's she says to stay true to your inner motivations, try everything, accept responsibility for mistakes, love as deserved, know truth, commit, and give inheritance to those you consider your kids.
Never to Dream of Spiders
This poem is discusses the complexities of social expectations, racism, and violence. At the beginning, Lorde writes about someone injured and falling in a crowd. As the person falls, that person loses sensations and gains an awareness of a universal self -- being one with all the people that are nearby. As consciousness fades, memories drift back. The person desperately tries to remember specific things, but cannot force them to come. They see life fading into death and whatever monumental events lie beyond. A dog catches hold of them, and hoses are sprayed on the crowd. In the moment of death, the fallen person understands that they will not be forgotten -- spiders will not form cobwebs upon their memory.
Father Son and Holy Ghost
Writing about her father's death, Lorde confesses some fears and regrets to her readers. She says she has never visited his grave once. As vividly as the days they happened, she remembers memories of him when she was a girl. He would tuck the kids in at night. He dated many women, trying to find someone to replace the wife he had loved and lost too early. To Lorde, the saddest part about his death is that he will only ever know the her that she was up to the day of his death. Whatever he was ever to think about her was finished that day, so she did the same for him. By not visiting his grace, she is preserving the memory of him as he was before death; he remains alive in her memory forever.
