Black History Month with Audre Lorde
“liberation is not the private province of any one particular group”
The Black feminist, lesbian, poet, mother, warrior Audre Lorde (1934-1992) was a native New Yorker and daughter of immigrants. Both her activism and her published work speak to the importance of struggle for liberation among oppressed peoples and of organizing in coalition across differences of race, gender, sexual orientation, class, age and ability. An internationally recognized activist and artist, Audre Lorde was the recipient of many honors and awards, including the Walt Whitman Citation of Merit, which conferred the mantle of New York State poet for 1991-93. In designating her New York State’s Poet Laureate, Governor Mario Cuomo observed: “Her imagination is charged by a sharp sense of racial injustice and cruelty, of sexual prejudice…She cries out against it as the voice of indignant humanity. Audre Lorde is the voice of the eloquent outsider who speaks in a language that can reach and touch people everywhere.”
Coal by Audre Lorde
- I
- is the total black, being spoken
- from the earth’s inside.
- There are many kinds of open
- how a diamond comes into a knot of flame
- how sound comes into a words, coloured
- by who pays what for speaking.
- Some words are open like a diamond
- on glass windows
- singing out within the crash of sun
- Then there are words like stapled wagers
- in a perforated book - buy and sign and tear apart -
- and come whatever will all chances
- the stub remains
- an ill-pulled tooth with a ragged edge.
- Some words live in my throat
- breeding like adders. Other know sun
- seeking like gypsies over my tongue
- to explode through my lips
- like young sparrows bursting from shell.
- Some words
- bedevil me
- Love is word, another kind of open.
- As the diamond comes into a knot of flame
- I am Black because I come from the earth’s inside
- Now take my word for jewel in the open light.
Check out the Audre Lorde Project: The Audre Lorde Project is a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two Spirit, Trans and Gender Non Conforming 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.
“The opinions expressed here are those of the blogger, and do not represent the views of The Cube or Southern Tier AIDS Program.”
(Source: tranqualizer, via fuckyeahbisexuals)
