Audre Lorde (1934 - 1992)

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The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde by Audre Lorde

This is the definitive and complete Audre Lorde collection, including original and revised versions of Lorde's previously unavailable early poems and her later work, which Robin Morgan calls "sinewy, lyrical, celebratory even in the face of death." Lorde was able to write indignantly about political matters ("jessehelms," her excoriation of the right-wing icon, is outrageously funny and angry), and her eloquence from the margins made her an inspiration to many readers. Lorde's writings about family, erotic love, and quiet, beautiful moments of reflection also leave a deep impression. As Adrienne Rich has noted: "These are poems which blaze and pulse on the page."

Sister Outsider : Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde

"Perhaps ... I am the face of one of your fears. Because I am a woman, because I am Black, because I am a lesbian, because I am myself -- a Black woman warrior poet doing my work -- come to ask you, are you doing yours?" This is how Audre Lorde introduces herself in a paper entitled "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action." Audre Lorde takes personal responsibility for this essential, perpetual transformation. In Sister Outsider she enters into dialogue with listeners and readers, lending us her voice and challenging us to speak and act for ourselves. She insists that we pay attention, that we confront the limitations we set upon ourselves and each other; her words have weight and resonance because she listens as rigorously as she speaks. She asks and risks more of herself than might seem possible; the political is personal on many levels of her life. She writes about facing the threat of cancer, about being part of an interracial lesbian couple raising a son, about sex, poetry, rage, and restraint. She is a fiercely intelligent writer, addressing racism, sexism, and heterosexism from the heart of her individual experience as an African-American, lesbian poet/warrior. Audre Lorde demonstrates how each of us must speak for and from our most intimate knowledge, yet simultaneously extend the boundaries around ourselves to include the "outsider," to include more than we have been, more than we thought we could imagine. -- From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Kirsten Backstrom

Audre Lorde:  Your Silence Will Not Protect You

By Tom Sullivan

Excerpt:

Audrey Geraldine Lorde was born on February 18, 1934 in New York City. She decided to drop the "y" from the end of her name at a young age, setting a precedent in her life of self determination. She was the daughter of Caribbean immigrants who settled in Harlem. She graduated from Columbia University and Hunter College, where she later held the prestigious post of Thomas Hunter Chair of Literature. She was married for eight years in the 1960's, and had two children -- Elizabeth and Jonathan.

Lorde was a self described "Black lesbian, mother, warrior, poet". However, her life was one that could not be summed up in a phrase...

Audre Lorde

By Ryan Becker, English Department, Emory University

Excerpt:

Not only was Audre Lorde a writer and an activist but she was an educator. She held numerous teaching positions and toured the world as a lecturer. She formed coalitions between Afro-German and Afro-Dutch women, founded a sisterhood in South Africa, began Women of Color Press, and established the St. Croix Women's Coalition. She was living in St.Croix at the time of her death. Perhaps the most fitting summary of her life and work can be found in a Boston Globe tribute by Renee Graham: "She took her frailties and misfortunes, her strengths and passions, and forged them into something searing, sometimes startling, always stirring verse. Her words pranced with cadence, full of their own rhythms, all punctuated resolve and spirit. With words spun into light, she could weep like Billie Holiday, chuckle like Dizzy Gillespie or bark bad like John Coltrane..."

Audre Lorde

From Sally Gaster's African American Phat Library

This site hosts the following poems:

Portrait of an American Author:  Audre Lorde

By Wade Beyer, Eddie Mendoza,Kim Lair, Michael Carney, University of Texas

Excerpt:

Audre Lorde's poetry wages what she called "a war against the tyrannies of "silence"; it articulates what has been passed over out of fear or discomfort, what has been kept hidden and secret. Reading her we feel the violence inherent in breaking a silence perhaps most often as she probes the experience of anger-the anger of black towards white or white towards black, a woman's anger at men and other women, and men's anger toward women. Her work is often deliberately disturbing, the powerful voice of the poem cutting through denial, politeness, and fear. In the development of this voice, Lorde drew on African resources, especially the matriarchal mythology and history of West Africa. "It is not differences that immobilizes us," she wrote, "but silence." Her best work calls on the deepest places of her own life-on the pain she experienced, on her rage, on her belonging and desire. One of the silences her poems broke concerns love between women, and she wrote a number of poems that are erotic, precise, and true to both the power and delicacy of feeling. Unafraid of anger she was also capable of tenderness; this is perhaps most clear not only in her love poems but in poems that address a younger generation. "I have come to believe over and over again," Lorde said, "that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal, and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood..."

Audre Lorde Memorial Prose Award

Two awards to feminist writers whose fiction or prose takes up a topic of discourse found in the work of Lorde or seeks to illustrate a condition, idea, or ideal inherent in her fiction or prose.

The Audre Lorde Project

The Audre Lorde Project is a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two Spirit and Transgender People of Color center for community organizing, focusing on the New York City area. Through mobilization, education and capacity-building, we work for community wellness and progressive social and economic justice. Committed to struggling across differences, we seek to responsibly reflect, represent and serve our various communities.

Names Index:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
| Authors Index | Scholars Index |