Exploring The Profound Life And Legacy Of Audre Lorde
Writers have the power to shape the future and our perspectives on many things. Stories can incite violence, empathy and revolution. American poet, writer, and autobiographer, Audre Lorde used her words to inspire a revolution. Her work contributed to third-wave feminism in the 1960s and she is well-recognized for her fervent essays on race and lesbian feminism.
On February 18, 1934, Lorde was born in New York City to Caribbean immigrants. Her mother, Linda Gertrude Belmar Lorde, was a Grenadian born on the island of Carriacou, and her father, Frederick Byron Lorde (also known as Byron), was from Barbados. Although she had mixed lineage, Lorde's mother passed for Spanish, which gave her family great pride.
She graduated with a bachelor's in arts in 1959 and a master's in library science in 1961. She was married in 1962, worked as a librarian at Town School in New York, and taught English at Hunter College while simultaneously producing poetry. After The First Cities⸺her debut collection of poems⸺was released in 1968, Lorde briefly relocated to Mississippi's Toogaloo College as poet-in-residence.
Lorde served as a visiting professor at the Free University of Berlin in West Berlin in 1984. She was invited by Dagmar Schultz, a lecturer at FU, whom she had met during the 1980 UN "World Women's Conference" in Copenhagen. Lorde developed into a significant member of the then-emerging Afro-German movement during her tenure in Germany. She graduated with a bachelor's in arts in 1959 and a master's in library science in 1961.
The "Afro-German" term was first used by Audre Lorde in 1984, which sparked the emergence of the Black movement in Germany. Lorde mentored numerous women during her frequent visits to Germany, including May Ayim, Ika Hügel-Marshall, and Helga Emden.
Her ideas are founded on the "theory of difference," which contends that while feminists have been compelled to provide the appearance of a solid, cohesive whole, the category of women itself is full of divides and that the binary opposition between men and women is oversimplified. Her rage at interpersonal and societal injustice was explored in Cables to Rage (1970), which also contained the first literary manifestation of her lesbianism. 1973's From a Land Where Other People Live and 1974's New York Head Shop and Museum (1974), were more rhetorical and political.
Coal (1976) was Lorde’s first release by a major publisher, and it earned critical notice. Most critics consider The Black Unicorn (1978) to be her finest poetic work. In the collection, she turned from the urban themes of her early work, looking instead to Africa, and wrote about her role as mother and daughter, using rich imagery and mythology. The poet’s 14-year battle with cancer is examined in The Cancer Journals (1980), in which she recorded her early battle with the disease and gave a feminist critique of the medical profession.
In 1980, Lorde and African American writer and activist Barbara Smith created a new publishing house, Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press. In her later years, as she battled cancer, Lorde became more vocal about concerns about chronic disease and disability. She also identified issues of race, class, age and ageism, sex and sexuality, and sexism. She described these elements as essential to the woman she was. Although gender disparities have garnered the majority of attention, she emphasized that these other differences must also be acknowledged and addressed.
Lorde had a mastectomy after receiving her initial breast cancer diagnosis in 1978. She discovered that her breast cancer had spread to her liver six years later. She published The Cancer Journals following her initial prognosis, which was honoured with the American Library Association Gay Caucus Book of the Year Award. In 1981, she was profiled in the film A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde, which depicts her as a writer, poet, human rights activist, feminist, lesbian, teacher, survivor, and a fighter against intolerance.
She served as the state poet of New York from 1991 until her death. Then-governor Mario Cuomo described Lorde as such, stating that "her imagination is charged with a strong awareness of racial injustice and cruelty, of sexual prejudice...She protests against it with the outraged cries of all of humanity. The articulate outsider who communicates in a language that can connect with anyone anywhere is Audre Lorde.” She was given the Bill Whitehead Lifetime Achievement Award by Publishing Triangle in 1992. The Audre Lorde Award was established by Publishing Triangle in 2001 to recognize lesbian poetry.
On November 17, 1992, Lorde, who had been residing with Gloria Joseph in St. Croix, passed away from breast cancer at the age of 58. Before she passed away, she was given the name Gamba Adisa in an African naming ritual, which translates to "Warrior: She Who Makes Her Meaning Known."