Language Literacy: Journal of Linguistics, Literature, and Language Teaching Volume 6, Number 2, pp: 245-250, December 2022 e-ISSN: 2580-9962 | p-ISSN: 2580-8672 DOI: 10.30743/ll.v6i2.5226 https://jurnal.uisu.ac.id/index.php/languageliteracy 245 Nationally Accredited SINTA 3, and indexed in DOAJ and Copernicus THE FUNCTION OF POETRY IN THE MODERN WORLD: A CASE STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN AND AUDRE LORDE’S POEMS Lauri Scheyer 1 , Zanyar Kareem Abdul 2 1 Xiaoxiang Scholars Program Distinguished Professor, Department of English, Foreign Studies College, Hunan Normal University, China 2 Department of English, College of Education, University of Charmo, Iraq E-mail: zanyar.kareem@charmouniversity.org Received: 2022-04-21 Accepted: 2022-11-17 Published: 2022-12-29 Abstract Lyric poetry has historically referred to a genre that we think of as brief, musical, and personal as well as subjective. This article addresses the role of lyric poetry in the modern world, and how critical analysis enables us to better appreciate the potential impact of poetry today. Specifically, we will offer brief contrastive assessments of two landmark exemplars of American poets, Walt Whitman and Audre Lorde. These two figures demonstrate some of the varied ways of the American poetry tradition. We compare Walt Whitman, a canonical white male poet from the 19 th century, with an equally important 20 th century African American woman poet, Audre Lorde. These American poets differ in historical periods, sex, race, and other factors, yet both uphold the conventional functions of lyric poetry and prove its continuing relevance to a global readership. The results show that as the reflection of human life, poetry could represent honesty, realism, democracy and even power. Keywords: American literature; American women poet; gender; lyric poetry; race 1. Introduction Lyric poetry is an ancient art form, and there have been many definitions and understandings of this old and revered literary genre throughout history. When asked how she could recognize true poetry, Emily Dickinson gave this famous answer: “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold, no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” If we sometimes find ourselves frustrated to get at the meaning of some poems even if we viscerally feel their impact, T. S. Eliot wrote, “Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.” For Dante, poetry means “Things that are true expressed in words that are beautiful.” In another famous definition, according to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poetry is “The best words in the best order.” In a powerful dictum from one of the greatest of African American poets, Gwendolyn Brooks, poetry is “life distilled.” For John Keats, as we read in his classic poem “Ode on A Grecian Urn,” poetry is directed to, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” and that is a definition that we will return to later. Poetry operates along two axes: there are the features that transcend time and place and speak eternally for the human experience, and the features that make poetry a truthful reflection of the time and place in which it is created. Poetry and poetry criticism are diachronic and synchronic in the finest poetic creations and analyses. Critical theory enables us to articulate an interpretive perspective of a poem. We