Lorde opens by setting up one of the poem's central themes. In a powerful, if somewhat cryptic, statement, the speaker contrasts "poetry" and "rhetoric," two different forms of language. She aligns poetry with "being ready to kill / yourself / instead of your children," suggesting that poetry involves passion, conviction, and even bravery. In contrast, rhetoric is presumably more passive, even cowardly; the implication is that those who speak or listen to rhetoric don't share the strong beliefs that inspire poetry.
This first stanza also sets the style and tone for the rest of the poem. Lorde relies heavily on enjambment, breaking this sentence into four lines without any punctuation (except for the final period). The first line, "The difference between poetry and rhetoric," stands out on a line longer than the ones that follow, hinting that this "difference" will be an important theme throughout the poem. Similarly, the second line feels stark and violent, as it breaks off right after the word "kill." Right away, the speaker thus indicates that the poem will involve themes of violence, and her impassioned tone begins to show.
Additionally, the idea of killing oneself versus one's children points to the murder Lorde discusses throughout the poem, as well as the Black jury member's decision to acquit Thomas Shea—which, in a way, made her complicit in the killing of Black children, even if she had no real choice but to succumb to her fellow jury members' courtroom rhetoric.