I Am Your Sister: Collected and Unpublished Writings

Freedom Organizing #3

by Audre Lorde, Rudolph P. Byrd (Editor), Johnnetta Betsch Cole (Editor)

Audre Lorde was not only a famous poet; she was also one of the most important radical black feminists of the past century. Her writings and speeches grappled with an impressive broad list of topics, including sexuality, race, gender, class, disease, the arts, parenting, and resistance, and they have served as a transformative and important foundation for theorists and activists in considering questions of power and social justice. Lorde embraced difference, and at each turn she emphasized the importance of using it to build shared strength among marginalized communities.

I Am Your Sister is a collection of Lorde's non-fiction prose, written between 1976 and 1990, and it introduces new perspectives on the depth and range of Lorde's intellectual interests and her commitments to progressive social change. Presented here, for the first time in print, is a major body of Lorde's speeches and essays, along with the complete text of A Burst of Light and Lorde's landmark prose works Sister Outsider and The Cancer Journals. Together, these writings reveal Lorde's commitment to a radical course of thought and action, situating her works within the women's, gay and lesbian, and African American Civil Rights movements. They also place her within a continuum of black feminists, from Sojourner Truth, to Anna Julia Cooper, Amy Jacques Garvey, Lorraine Hansberry, and Patricia Hill Collins. I Am Your Sister concludes with personal reflections from Alice Walker, Gloria Joseph, Johnnetta Betsch Cole, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, and bell hooks on Lorde's political and social commitments and the indelibility of her writings for all who are committed to a more equitable society.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Poetry, Essays, Race, Queer, LGBT

259 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1985

About the author

Audre Lorde was a revolutionary Black feminist. Lorde's poetry was published very regularly during the 1960s — in Langston Hughes' 1962 New Negro Poets, USA; in several foreign anthologies; and in black literary magazines. During this time, she was politically active in civil rights, anti-war, and feminist movements. Her first volume of poetry, The First Cities (1968), was published by the Poet's Press and edited by Diane di Prima, a former classmate and friend from Hunter College High School. Dudley Randall, a poet and critic, asserted in his review of the book that Lorde "does not wave a black flag, but her blackness is there, implicit, in the bone."

Her second volume, Cables to Rage (1970), which was mainly written during her tenure at Tougaloo College in Mississippi, addressed themes of love, betrayal, childbirth and the complexities of raising children. It is particularly noteworthy for the poem "Martha", in which Lorde poetically confirms her homosexuality: "[W]e shall love each other here if ever at all." Later books continued her political aims in lesbian and gay rights, and feminism. In 1980, together with Barbara Smith and Cherríe Moraga, she co-founded Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, the first U.S. publisher for women of colour. Lorde was State Poet of New York from 1991 to 1992.

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Reviews

[Rowena · Rating 4 out of 5]

My introduction to Audre Lorde and I enjoyed her essays very much. I sensed a lot of compassion in her words, as well as her desire for understanding and her wish for collaboration and dialogue between people who may feel they have nothing to learn from each other due to their differences. The following quotes in particular touched me:

"We do not need to become each other in order to work together."

" I am constantly defining my selves, for I am, as we all are, made up of so many different parts."

"I feel, and stake my life and my living upon it, that we become strong by doing whatever it is we need to be strong for."

[Jes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Someone sent me a PDF of this book in my first or second year of grad school, and I have reread it in its entirety probably twice a year since then. I always wind up opening the PDF to find a particular piece for teaching or emotional sustenance or whatever and then just keep going. The pieces are all short and conversational in tone, as a lot of them are addresses, commencement speeches, that kind of thing.

I know that people go to the Sister Outsider essays for teaching a lot, but my secret trick is to get students hooked on Lorde through short pieces from this book and then gradually introduce them to the denser/more theoretical stuff over the course of the semester. and then WHAM, we end the semester with "Difference and Survival: An Address at Hunter College," an essay that makes me cry every time I read it. Not in a sappy "oh, what a nice thought" kind of way, where you put the book away and go do something else and forget about it almost immediately, but in the kind of way that leaves me feeling so energized and just, idk, spiritually ready, spiritually recommitted to doing the hard uncomfortable work of being a person in the world who has to live among other people. I don't know how to describe it but I feel like we all have that one writer who we're never done thinking about because we think with them. They serve as both a resource or a touchstone, something you return to to be recharged, but you also carry them with you; gradually their work, and what their work means to you, becomes this shaping part of how you make sense of yourself and the world: "[it] flows through and colors my life with a kind of energy that heightens and sensitizes and strengthens all my experience."


I love so many things about her, but two that are on my mind in this latest rereading:

1) she truly gives zero fucks about posturing as a cool, jaded academic. I cannot even imagine her responding to the queer antisocial bullshit or the ~cool male academic subjectivity that Lisa Ruddick writes about. THIS IS NOT A THEORETICAL DISCUSSION, Lorde says. I AM TALKING HERE ABOUT THE VERY FABRIC OF YOUR LIVES, YOUR DREAMS, YOUR HOPES, YOUR VISIONS, YOUR PLACE UPON THE EARTH. !!!!!!

2) she is stubborn, willful, calls it like she sees it, doesn't believe in sparing people's feelings or smoothing over something that really is a big deal just to avoid conflict, and holds people accountable for the things they say and do. but she is also so, so good on the subject of like...how do you come together anyway. how do you work with people you disagree with (or even like, with people you agree with 80% but not 100%) without demanding that people be in ideological lock-step with an absolutely uniform political vision. collective politics is messy!! living with other people, living in community, negotiating what it means to live and work and engage with other human beings is messy. so much in western culture is designed to divide us from each other, to isolate us from the collective, to make us feel like we can never communicate or come to terms, and to make us feel like it is almost a point of pride to not even try. but for lorde it is almost like... doing that difficult work of trying to connect is not necessarily because it will work, or because we will leave those encounters feeling 100% satisfied and as if we were affirmed in every aspect, but because it is part of the work of being human, and that work is ongoing.
agh I'm tired and I'm not being articulate, but it's like... her work doesn't feel like it's just soothing you and telling you that it's ok, we're all just people, if we just hold hands in a circle and sing together then all our problems will melt away. but it does remind me of why it is worth centering connection, communication, understanding, teaching, creating, and loving in our lives, even when those things feel too difficult or too exhausting to be worth it. SHE IS A LUMINOUS SOUL OK.

ok anyway i'm just gonna leave you with a long passage from "Self-Definition and My Poetry" that I love:

I know however, that if I, Audre Lorde, do not define myself, the outer world certainly will, and, as each one of you will discover, probably will define each one of us to our detriment, singly or in groups. So I cannot separate my life and my poetry. I write my living and I live my work. And I find in my life truths which I hope can reach across, bring richness, to other women beyond the differences in our lives, beyond the differences in our loves, beyond the differences in our work. For it is within the sharing of these differences that we find growth. It is within these differences that I find growth, or can, if I am honest enough to speak out of my many selves, my loves, my hates, my mistakes, as well as my strengths.

I feel, and stake my life and my living upon it, that we become strong by doing whatever it is we need to be strong for.

Solstice.

I am constantly defining my selves, for I am, as we all are, made up of so many different parts. But when those selves war within me, I am immobilized, and when they move in harmony, or allowance, I am enriched, made strong. Yet I know there are Black women who do not use my work in their classes because I am a lesbian. There are lesbians who cannot hear me nor my work because I have two children, one of whom is a boy, both of whom I love dearly. There are women, maybe in this room, who cannot deal with me nor my vision because I am Black, and their racism becomes a blindness that separates us. And by us I mean all those who truly believe we can work for a world in which we can all live and define ourselves.

And I tell you this. My friends, there will always be someone seeking to use one part of your selves, and at the same time urging you to forget or destroy all of the other selves. And I warn you, this is death. Death to you as a woman, death to you as a poet, death to you as a human being.

[M. J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uma rara coleção de textos que sangram intensidade e astúcia na mesma medida que em transmitem compaixão e um senso terno de fraternidade. Fica evidente através de seus textos as convicções políticas de Lorde, focadas em um sentimento de comunidade, de força na diversidade, força contra as forças sistêmicas de opressão. Sua escrita é poderosa porque não é evasiva, é particular, mas também comunitária, forte porque se permite ser frágil. Lorde anuncia suas identidades em diversos momentos: mulher, negra, lésbica, mãe, porém não em uma lógica de divisão categórica, mas em uma lembrança da multiplicidade potencial da vida, da força que podemos encontrar quando temos certeza de quem somos. Lorde convoca, grita, sussurra, chora. Suas armas são as palavras e, por vezes, elas se revestem de aço e perfuram, mas no seu cerne um coração pulsa vivo e acolhedor.

Nessa coleção de textos Lorde relata sua história com a descoberta do seu corpo, o percurso pra quebrar o ciclo de violência em sua maternagem, denuncia a violência policial com dados e assertividade, denuncia o sistema de Apartheid na África do sul, conclama a união de uma comunidade, valoriza o resgatar da ancestralidade africana, mas também destaca a igualdade dos oprimidos em suas diferenças. Sua voz referencia revoluções e o desejo de independência de países africanos; reflete sobre como o termo "negro" é múltiplo, usado por afro-americanos, mas também indígenas aborígenes, preocupa-se com a necessidade de se respeitar a individualidade dos movimentos sem corroer o sentimento de potência na união.

Procurei no livro de Lorde uma satisfação intelectual e esclarecedora, encontrei isso, mas também encontrei alguém frágil e forte, rígida e suave. Encontrei nesse livro alguém que já havia falecido dois anos antes do meu nascimento e que, ainda assim, vai continuar viva nas suas palavras em mim, estas continuarão aqui, como as de uma amiga que nunca encontrei pessoalmente, mas que admiro.

[mez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audre Lorde mi mamá, te amo

[M. Ainomugisha · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s no time the writings of Audre Lorde have not given me strength, refuge, hope, reassurance, abundance of language. Audre Lorde’s words live on in my heart. They are perpetual. Perpetual.
It was generous of Rudolph P. Byrd, Johnetta Betsch Cole and Beverly Guy-Sheftall to gather this work. I thank them too.

[Gabriel Avocado · Rating 5 out of 5]

incredible. excellent primer not just on audre lorde's work and life but on the entire history of black feminist thought. i thoroughly recommend giving this one a read because theres not much for me to add. it is a quick read and i found it hard to put down. im going to find more of audres work because i never realized how important she truly is to me.

[Ms. Online]

THE POET IN PROSE
Angela Bowen

Review of I Am Your Sister: Collected and Unpublished Writings of Audre Lord
Edited by Rudolph P. Byrd, Johnnetta Betsch Cole and Beverly Guy-Sheftall
Oxford University Press

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-yearold 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 BOWEN, PH.D., is professor emeritus in women's studies at California State University, Long Beach.

[Raquel Bello Vázquez · Rating 5 out of 5]

O volume, com excelente tradução da poeta e tradutora Stephanie Borges, responsável também pela versão brasileira de Irmã outsider, recolhe textos diversos e esparsos de Audre Lorde, poeta, militante, ativista, professora e pensadora fundamental dos pensamentos negro, queer, feminista e, sobretudo, das interseções entre todos eles.

Pelo tipo de estrutura do livro, que reúne prólogos, conferências, discursos e anotações de Lorde no seu diário, há algumas repetições de assuntos e formulações, o que é inevitável nesse formato e, não só não atrapalha a leitura, mas serve de reforço e aprofundamento de conceitos caros à autora.

Discussões que hoje ganharam a centralidade no campo da esquerda são formuladas por Lorde com uma lucidez deslumbrante, levando em conta o campo político da década de 1980, em que o livro está mais focado. As dificuldades enfrentadas por ela para pôr de relevo a necessidade de considerar todas as opressões de forma interligada e não hier��rquica muitas vezes lhe valeram a rejeição e o ódio daqueles que deveriam ser companheiros de viagem.

Apesar dessas dificuldades, ou, precisamente, como forma de enfrentá-las o coletivo, o amor (num sentido amplo), e a amizade entre mulheres negras que se constituem redes de apoio surgem como os espaços que tornam viável a sobrevivência num mundo e num contexto político, social e cultural que considera que algumas vidas valem menos do que outras e que, portanto, seriam descartáveis.

Menção especial merece a terceira parte do livro, que traz os trechos do diário de Lorde no período em que lhe foi diagnosticado o retorno, em forma de metástase no fígado, do câncer de mama que tinha sofrido seis anos antes. São páginas em que a escritora reflete, com afeto e sentimento, mas sem sentimentalismo, sobre o que é uma vida bem vivida, sobre a autonomia dela como paciente em relação ao autoritarismo médico, sobre como a doença também pode ser encarada politicamente e sobre a herança que espera deixar aos seus filhos e a marca da sua existência que deseja imprimir no mundo.

[Catarina Lobo · Rating 4 out of 5]

o livro é dividido em três partes: (i) diferença e sobrevivência, em que há textos sobre a questão da interseccionalidade negra, lésbica e feminista, (ii) minhas palavras estarão lá, com textos mais pessoais sobre a vida da audre, infância, sua vida como poeta, e (iii) uma explosão de luz, uma reunião de passagens de diários dos primeiros dois anos em que ela descobriu que tinha metástase de câncer no fígado.

eu comecei o livro muito encantada com a figura potente da audre lorde, uma mulher que realmente acreditava e vivia as causas que defendia. e não se trata só de uma feminista, só de uma militante negra, ou só de uma militante lésbica, ela é e se define a todo momento como as três coisas, que sempre devem ser levadas em consideração. eu achei muito enriquecedor ler sobre a perspectiva de uma mulher lésbica sobre o movimento racial, que muitas vezes é escondida.

talvez o único problema das primeiras duas partes do livro é que é uma seleção de discursos, passagens, críticas literárias escolhidas por um editor, e não pela própria autora. eu sempre acho que a unidade de uma obra fica comprometida com essa seleção póstuma. mas a última parte do livro é muito sensível e já foi inclusive um livro próprio dela.

o terceiro livro é doloroso, pessoal e muito forte. é muito triste e angustiante ver uma pessoa com tanta vontade de viver escrevendo sobre os últimos dias da sua vida. essa parte foi com certeza a minha favorita.

me deu muita vontade de ler a poesia da audre!

[Cherie · Rating 4 out of 5]

How did I miss this gem for so many years? Journal entries, lectures, reflections by one of my favorite authors.

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genius.

[Basmaish · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Audre Lorde.

[Jenelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful collection of her work as well as reflections of Audre by colleagues/friends. A great place for someone to start to begin to understand her and her work.

[Jonathan Norton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of Lorde's writings on her experiences as a poet, a feminist, and a cancer patient. Being a black lesbian at a time when the movement was dominated by white heterosexuals (and what's changed since then?) a lot of her writing pertains to what would be called "intersectionality" now, though I don't think the term is used here. The book is a mixture of speeches, review articles, essays and journals. Her cancer diaries from the mid 80s cover her time at a Rudolf Steiner clinic in Switzerland, from which it seems she gained techniques for coping, even if she didn't feel entirely at ease with the community. Also included is "There Is No Hierarchy Of Oppression", records of her many conflicts with other activists, and memoirs from her friends and colleagues.

[Corvus · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first foray into the world of Lorde outside of snippets I've read on the internet. what a badass. I especially enjoyed reading her journal from during part of her struggle with cancer as well as speeches she had given. I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 not because of Lorde but because a large chunk of the book was other peoples writing- some of which was interesting (like reading Alice Walker's remembering of Audrey) and some seemed drawn out and longer than they needed to be thus taking up more space than most of Audreys included essays (the intro and epilogue.) Looking forward to reading more Audrey in the future.

[Les · Rating 4 out of 5]

Could've read more of the selections, but with Lorde it always boils down to self-definition and ownership of one's voice if nothing else. I figured the collection would echo Hansberry's "To Be Young, Gifted and Black," but it was more in line with the last publication of Baldwin's collected works and musings - much more official (though not as expansive). This is a work I will come back to because the insight is so rooted in truth and she voices our culture in a way no one else could or dared to do.

[Pelks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars only because a lot of these works are the periphery, not the core, of her work. That said it's an excellent introduction because a lot of her key points are emphasized and she is memorialized by other literary or feminist writers who give insight into what her work did for the world. The cancer journals had me tearing up, yet they were incredibly inspiring too.

[M]

"In other words, how can we use each other’s differences in our
common battles for a livable future?
All of our children are prey. How do we raise them not to prey upon
themselves and each other? And this is why we cannot be silent, because our
silences will come to testify against us out of the mouths of our children."

"I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much
sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love, and doing
as much as I can of the work I still have to do. I am going to write fi
fire until it comes out my ears, my eyes, my noseholes—everywhere. Until
it’s every breath I breathe. I’m going to go out like a fucking meteor!"

"I have always been haunted by the fear of not being able to reach
the women I am closest to, of not being able to make available to the
women I love most dearly what I can make available to so many others.
The women in my family, my closest friends. If what I know to be true
cannot be of use to them, can it ever have been said to be true at all?
On the other hand, that lays a terrible burden on all of us concerned,
doesn’t it?"

"Tomorrow belongs to those of us who conceive of it as belonging to everyone,
who lend the best of ourselves to it, and with joy."

"When they come after you or me, it won’t matter particularly whether you are or I am a Black poet lesbian mother lover feeler doer woman, it will only matter that we shared in the rise of that most
real and threatening human movement, the right to love, to work, and to define each of us, ourselves."

"And I can encourage a student to recognize, cherish, and set down those
feelings and experiences out of which poetry is forged. But the only way
I can teach another human being anything else about creating poetry is
to teach that person about myself, about feeling herself or himself.
And I can only do that by being willing to share my feelings, my
selves, with whatever selves, whatever feelings a student chooses to fi nd
in the pursuit of her or his poetry. The experience of poetry is an intimate
one. It is neither easy nor casual, but it is real."

"Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be
thought. The farthest external horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled
by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives,
honestly felt. For our feelings are the sanctuaries and spawning grounds
for the most radical and daring of our ideas. Right now I could mention
at least ten ideas I might have once found intolerable or frightening except
as they came after dreams or poems. For poetry is not only dream
and vision, it is the skeleton architect of our lives."

[Alamein · Rating 4 out of 5]

lecture sous covid donc je crois que ma compréhension de l'œuvre a été assez limitée mais globalement chouette bouquin je recommande




"La poésie fait advenir quelque chose, vraiment. Elle vous fait advenir. Elle fait advenir votre vie, que vous en fassiez usage ou pas. Par définition, une personne qui pratique la poésie enseigne également."

"La seule manière dont nous pouvons apprendre à quelqu’un-e à écrire de la poésie, c’est d’oser vivre pleinement, et d’oser partager cette vie. D’être renforcé, avoir peur devient moins important, de la même façon que ressentir de la fatigue a moins d’importance. Et nous sommes habitué-es à travailler lorsque nous sommes fatigué-es."

"Que puis-je partager avec la jeune génération de femmes écrivaines, avec les écrivain-es en général ? Que peuvent-elles apprendre de mon expérience ? Je leur dis de ne pas avoir peur de ressentir les choses et de ne pas avoir peur d’écrire à ce propos. Allez-y, dans tous les cas. Nous apprenons à travailler lorsque nous sommes fatigué-es, alors nous pouvons apprendre à écrire lorsque nous avons peur."

"Et aux avant-postes de notre mouvement vers le changement, il n’y a que la poésie pour évoquer que le possible peut devenir réel. Il n’y a pas de nouvelles idées mais seulement de nouvelles façons de les faire ressentir, de leur donner réalité. Car au sein de ces structures sous le joug desquelles nous vivons, définies par le profit, par un pouvoir vertical et sûr de lui, par la déshumanisation institutionnelle, nos émotions n’étaient pas censées survivre."

"Apprenez à aimer le pouvoir de vos émotions et à utiliser ce pouvoir pour votre bien."

"La poésie est la voie qui nous aide à nommer l’innommé de façon à ce qu’il puisse être envisagé par la pensée. Les perspectives d’avenir de nos espoirs et de nos peurs sont jonchées de nos poèmes, elles sont sculptées dans les dures expériences de nos vies quotidiennes, sincèrement vécues."

"Je ne peux pas dissocier ma vie de ma poésie. J’écris ma vie et je vis mon œuvre."

 "Les pères blancs nous ont enseigné : je pense, donc je suis. Mais la mère Noire à l’intérieur de chacun-e d’entre nous, la poétesse ou le poète au cœur de chacun-e d’entre nous, vient chuchoter dans nos rêves : je ressens, donc je peux être libre. La poésie invente le langage qui nous permet d’exprimer et de coordonner la mise en œuvre de cette liberté."

[Carlos Alberto · Rating 3 out of 5]

6/10
"Sou sua irmã", escrito por Audre Lorde, é uma aula, longa, sobre os comportamentos, costumes, sociologia, antropologia e principalmente de humanismo nas relações humanas que temos contato envolvidos pelas experiencias de vida da autora. Nesta olyra, temos compilado diversos textos, colunas, poemas e obras escritas pela poeta, professora, mãe, mulher negra e lesbica que morreu de cancêr aos XX anos. Tendo uma vida conturbada academicamente, envolvida em protestos e revoltas pelo bem da comunidade negra, lesbica e trabalhadora, podemos considerar Lorde um marco exponencial na criação de uma nova vesão da negritude e da lesbianidade, sendo um resultado maravilhoso da soma das duas. Agora, falando sobre a escrita; Audre possui uma letra cansativa e, muitas vezes, arrastada. Poucos textos realmente dão um choque durante a vasta leituras de sua vida, me senti várias vezes peneirando ouro em um garimpo, claro que há ouro mas o trabalho até chegar nele é tão extenuante e cansativo que demorei trés meses para finalizar de tão chatinho que era.

[Tanya Sinha · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a brilliant collection of essays spanning the life of Black Lesbian Feminist Warrior Poet, Audre Lorde. Her words kept me reading and forgetting to look at the time. So many places I cried in this collection - 'A burst of light' and where she talked out of an immense sense of urgency and devastation about her own people internalising and directing the weapons of the oppressor against each other come to mind. 'My Mother's Mortar' was one of the most tender peices I've read of a young Black woman coming of age, the blossoming of a consious self sensuality. Always feel changed for the better and to have grown as a human after reading her words. We are truly blessed to have her leave us with so many peices of herself. May she rest in peace.

[Marc Gonzalez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a wonderful and thoughtful collection of Lorde’s work. It is presented so well, so intentional in the curation and presentation of some of Lorde’s work. And Audre Lorde is a genius, which goes without saying but also can never be said enough.

I will likely find myself returning to this quite often, but in particular “My Mother’s Mortar.” Such a wonderful essay about the relationship between mother and child, so physical in its writing, truly so perfect.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hadn't read much of Lorde before this book, and this was a great introduction. I can easily see how her writing has inspired so many activists and why her writing is so often quoted today in social justice conversations.
For me it was especially helpful to have the introduction and other writings by other activists, in order to put some of these writings into their context.

[Vitória Barenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

The cancer journals são simplesmente uma das coisas mais lindas que já vi <3
Os escritos dessa mulher negra lésbica poeta com certeza me ajudaram e ajudarão muito ainda quando estiver passando por momentos difíceis durante os quais precise lembrar de minhas autonomia e liberdade de viver a vida com alegria.

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

good stuff

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars because Audre Lorde. If you have other collections, though, there is a lot of repetition.

[Antonio Laurindo · Rating 5 out of 5]

É o tipo de livro que quero emprestar para todo mundo. Não conhecia Audre Lorde. Fiquei impactado com a forma como interpretava a vida, o racismo, o machismo e a homofobia.

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading for all.

[Sheila Mulcahy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am new to this woman I would be proud to call my sister and am thrilled that she was a prolific writer and the list of unread prose, poetry, and collections will keep me very busy for a long time.

[Noelle Hoffman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very intellectual but very interesting