Audre lorde poems

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photo by Elsa Dorfman

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.” Her works include:

• A Burst Of Light
• T
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  Poet and author Audre Lorde used her writing to shine light on her experience of the world as a Black lesbian woman and later, as a mother and person suffering from cancer. A prominent member of the women’s and LGBTQ rights movements, her writings called attention to the multifaceted nature of identity and the ways in which people from different walks of life could grow stronger together.

  Audrey Geraldine Lorde was born on February 18, 1934 to Frederic and Linda Belmar Lorde, immigrants from Grenada. She was the youngest of three sisters and grew up in Manhattan. As a child, Lorde dropped the “y” from her first name to become Audre.

  Lorde connected with poetry from a young age. She once commented, “I used to speak in poetry...when I couldn’t find the poems to express the things I was feeling, that’s what started me writing poetry.” She was around 12 or 13 at the time. She graduated from Hunter High School, where she edited the literary magazine. After an English teacher rejected one of her poems, Lorde submitted it to Seventeen magazine – it became her first professional publi

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  Audre Lorde

  American writer and feminist activist (1934–1992)

  Not to be confused with André de Lorde.

  Audre Lorde (AW-dree LORD; born Audrey Geraldine Lorde; February 18, 1934–November 17, 1992) was an American writer, professor, philosopher, intersectional feminist, poet and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "Black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, mother, warrior, poet" who dedicated her life and talents to confronting different forms of injustice, as she believed there could be "no hierarchy of oppressions" among "those who share the goals of liberation and a workable future for our children."^[2][3]

  As a poet, she is well known for technical mastery and emotional expression, as well as her poems that express anger and outrage at civil and social injustices she observed throughout her life. She was the recipient of national and international awards and the founding member of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press.^[4] As a spoken word artist, her delivery has been called powerful, melodic, and intense by the Poetry Foundation.^&