Audre Lorde

## **Biography**

Your silence will not protect you.

Audre Lorde described herself as a “black lesbian mother warrior poet” who spent her life confronting the prejudices of racism, sexism and homophobia. She fought against the stereotypes of the identities that encompassed who she was being both a black woman and a lesbian. Although the term intersectionality wasn’t coined by her, many of her works involve her intersections. In an interview she had with Callaloo Lorde states the following: “My sexuality is part and parcel of who I am, and my poetry comes from the intersection of me and my worlds.”

Being the daughter of immigrants from the caribbean islands, she was always connected to her roots, even though she grew up in Harlem, NYC. Her mother's dream was to follow in the footsteps of her sisters, who came to NY with the hopes of being a small business owner.

Audre was always fond of passionate writings and prose. Early on she memorized poems that really resonated with her, but as she got older she began to write her own poetry to fill in the gaps that were missing in the readings she did early on in life. Lorde was encouraged in high school to pursue this passion.

Being the person of intersection that she was, Audre always knew something about America’s race relations was off, but her trip to Mexico solidified these feelings. This quote by Lorde found on Encyclopedia.com signifies this shift.  “In Mexico I learned to walk upright, to say the things I felt. I became conscious that I hadn’t the courage to speak up.” After this trip she got her undergraduate degree in NYC then continue to get her Masters degree in Library Science in 1961.

Throughout her career, Audre Lorde won many awards like the American Book Award (1989), Walt Whitman Citation of Merit (1991), and Poet Laureate of New York State in 1991 through 1993.

After more than a decade of battling cancer, Audre Lorde passed on the island of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

## **An Analysis of Famous Works**

**The American Cancer Society or There is More Than one Way to Skin a Coon**

Reading though this poem, while referencing back to the title, I think Lorde is trying to discuss the different ways that America kills black people. In reference to the cancer society, she talks about how cigarettes are extremely accessible to black youth. She also comments on how black people learn that their experience is inferior to whiteness. This is explained halfway through the second stanza "Even though all astronauts are white/Perhaps Black People can develop/Some of those human attributes". This line really stuck with me since in class we talked about the many ways people are socialized to look at other races, particularly white children are socialized to view black people.

**A Woman Speaks**

This poem is about femininity and womanhood. At the beginning of the piece, Lorde describes how influential she feels her spirit is to the world "when the sea turns back/ it will leave my shape behind". Throughout the poem, Lorde makes comparisons of herself with nature. She speaks of divinity and love. This resonated with me because socially, black woman are not seen as divine and spiritual creatures. Many times we are considered to be "manly" and "aggressive". She talks about how all this time in her life she was a woman, this poem reads as she is finally making that discovery. My favorite line is at the end, when she states "I am/woman/and not white". This last statement really kept with me because we are taught early on that white woman are the pinnacle of womanhood, so to read this as if she was embracing herself and giving that back to herself was beautiful.

**The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master's House**

This was an article about how she was invited to speak at a conference for NYU. Though she was perfectly fine being there, she had an issue with the representation and the lack of other voices. She was also upset that they asked her to contribute at the last minute, when many times conferences with esteem such as this one are asking guests to come months prior to it. The reason this essay is so powerful is because many times it is not enough work to simply have the representation there. In a system where sexism, racism, and homophobia are dominant it is childish to assume that having one person there will make a large difference. She also talks about how they didn't consider Third World women and the importance of interdependence within marginalized groups in order to make a real change. At the end of the essay, Lorde encourages everyone there, and the reader to look deep within ourselves and seek out the things we fear most. Then she reckons that the personal and political aspects of our lives will merge and begin to take shape in all of our choices.

## **Notable Works** (short list)

* *The Black Unicorn*
* *A Burst of Light (a collection of essays)*
* *The Cancer Journals*
* *The First Cities*
* *I am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities*
* *Lesbian Party: An Anthology*
* *Uses of The Erotic: The Erotic As Power*
* *Zami: A New Spelling of My Name*

## **Lorde's Battle with Cancer**

Audre Lorde gave insight to her battle with cancer in her book, *The Cancer Journals (*1980). She talked about how she chose to consider herself and women like her a warrior. Throughout her journey she handled the knowledge head on and wanted to gain more information about the disease. It was through this method that she decided to find alternative treatments instead of more surgery. This book was also her first major piece of porse, which gains her accolades over the years. Similar to how she fought for civil justice, Lorde also approached her illness with a strong mind, and believed that in order to deter stigma from getting a mascetomy, women who had been through the process should let their story be known.

## **Sources:**

http://www.muhlenberg.edu/media/contentassets/pdf/campuslife/SDP%20Reading%20Lorde.pdf

https://www.biography.com/people/audre-lorde-214108

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/20/books/audre-lorde-58-a-poet-memoirist-and-lecturer-dies.html?mcubz=0

https://alp.org/about/audre

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/audre-lorde

http://www.english.illinois.edu/Maps/poets/g\_l/lorde/life.htm