50
Used, New, and Out of Print Books - We Buy and Sell - Powell's Books
Cart |
|  my account  |  wish list  |  help   |  800-878-7323
Hello, | Login
MENU
  • Browse
    • New Arrivals
    • Bestsellers
    • Featured Preorders
    • Award Winners
    • Audio Books
    • See All Subjects
  • Used
  • Staff Picks
    • Staff Picks
    • Picks of the Month
    • Bookseller Displays
    • 50 Books for 50 Years
    • 25 Best 21st Century Sci-Fi & Fantasy
    • 25 PNW Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books From the 21st Century
    • 25 Memoirs to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Global Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Women to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books to Read Before You Die
  • Gifts
    • Gift Cards & eGift Cards
    • Powell's Souvenirs
    • Journals and Notebooks
    • socks
    • Games
  • Sell Books
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Find A Store

PowellsBooks.Blog
Authors, readers, critics, media − and booksellers.

Review-a-Day

Poet in Prose

by Review-a-Day, August 16, 2009 12:00 AM
I Am Your Sister: Collected and Unpublished Writings of Audre LordeI Am Your Sister: Collected and Unpublished Writings of Audre Lorde by Rudolph P. (edt) Byrd

Reviewed by Angela Bowden

Ms. Magazine

I first met the poet and radical black feminist Audre Lorde in the 1970s at 2 a.m. My family tucked in, I was reading the lesbian magazine Azalea and found myself laughing and thrilled by her writing. Not long after, I met her in the flesh at a feminist bookstore where she was reading her poetry, one-breasted and comfortable without a prosthesis. When a baby cried, she told the mother not to worry and the rest of us to relax; she could read above the baby, she said, and she did.

Lorde's generosity was legendary, as we learn in this collection of her nonfiction prose, including selections from The Cancer Journals and the essays and speeches in Sister Outsider, along with several personal reflections from those who knew her, including her companion Gloria Joseph and her friend Alice Walker. Walker tells of being nominated for the 1974 National Book Award in poetry, along with Lorde and Adrienne Rich. "Audre and I suspected the winner would be Adrienne -- no black woman poet had ever been selected before," she writes. Lorde telephoned Walker and read a statement she had crafted with Rich announcing that whoever won "would accept the award in the names of the other two, as well as in the name of all women." Rich did win, and, in one of feminism's finest moments, she read their statement from the stage.

Another of Lorde's signature attributes was courage, especially when it came to owning her sexuality. In a 1979 speech at the National Third World Gay and Lesbian Conference, she said, "I stand here as a 46-year old black lesbian feminist warrior poet come to do my work as we have each come to do hers and his -- the tasks of joyfulness, of struggle, of community, and the work of redefining our joint power and goals, so that our younger people need never suffer in the isolation that so many of us have known."

Above all, she had a big heart. I was present at another of her talks when a young black woman came to her teary-eyed. The poet hugged her, asking what the trouble was. The woman said she'd heard that whenever Lorde spoke in public, she always said she was a lesbian, and this time she hadn't. Lorde answered she would make sure she never left it out again.

Lorde died of breast and liver cancer in 1992 at the age of 58. The editors of this abundant feast of a book remind us of the importance of her work, which for 40 years has served as a foundation and catalyst for questions of identity, difference, power and social justice. There is much to ponder, discuss, teach and revere in this compilation.

Angela Bowden, Ph.D., is professor emeritus in women's studies at California State University, Long Beach.




{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##

Most Read

  1. Best Books of 2022: Fiction by Powell's Staff
  2. The Big List of Backlist: Books That Got Us Through 2022 by Powell's Staff
  3. 25 Books to Read Before You Die: 21st Century by Powell's Staff
  4. Powell's 2023 Book Preview: The First Quarter by Powell's Staff
  5. 7 Essential Authors Recommend Their 7 Essential Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books by Powell's Staff

Blog Categories

  • Interviews
  • Original Essays
  • Lists
  • Q&As
  • Playlists
  • Portrait of a Bookseller
  • City of Readers
  • Required Reading
  • Powell's Picks Spotlight

Post a comment:

*Required Fields
Name*
Email*
  1. Please note:
  2. All comments require moderation by Powells.com staff.
  3. Comments submitted on weekends might take until Monday to appear.
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Instagram

  • Help
  • Guarantee
  • My Account
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Security
  • Wish List
  • Partners
  • Contact Us
  • Shipping
  • Transparency ACT MRF
  • Sitemap
  • © 2023 POWELLS.COM Terms