Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde

by Alexis De Veaux

During her lifetime, Audre Lorde (1934-1992), author of the landmark Cancer Journals, created a mythic identity for herself that retains its vitality to this day. Drawing from the private archives of the poet's estate and numerous interviews, Alexis De Veaux demystifies Lorde's iconic status, charting her conservative childhood in Harlem; her early marriage to a white, gay man with whom she had two children; her emergence as an outspoken black feminist lesbian; and her canonization as a seminal poet of American literature.

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

474 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2004

About the author

Alexis De Veaux is a black queer feminist independent scholar whose work is published in six languages and internationally known. She is the author of several books and her work is anthologized in numerous collections. The recipient of many honors and awards, Alexis penned Warrior Poet (WW Norton, 2004), the first biography of the late lesbian poet activist, Audre Lorde; and was tenured faculty at the University at Buffalo, Department of Women’s Studies, for more than twenty years, mentoring a new generation of interdisciplinary scholars of black, feminist, and queer studies. She has won two Lambda Literary Awards; one for her Lorde biography (2005) and one for her novel, Yabo (2015).

Reviews

[Tim Haslett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alexis De Veaux spent years doing exhaustive research (qualitative rather than quantitative) on the terribly missed activist/writer/goddess-head figure, Audre Lorde. When she passed, it left an empty space in my soul, and Prof. De Veaux fills that space.

This is a biography born of a fierce love for its subject, a woman who saved peoples' lives with her writing. It's a careful, meticulous book and it is certainly no hagiography. And that is some feat. If someone asked me to write a bio of Audre Lorde, I'd find it impossible to even suggest anything other than some kind of sainthood.

The terrible sadness of Lorde's cruelly truncated life resonates throughout this biography. She died of cancer in St. Croix, where she lived with her partner after having spent her entire life in New York City.

Lorde's nearly miraculous poetry and prose are thoroughly reanimated in this biography. The words are suffused with her courage, humor, generosity, and beauty. Lorde refused 'market values', instead she embraced love, care, service to others, sacrifice, risk, community, struggles for justice, and solidarity

On another note, one constantly sees numerous 800 page biographies of Ronald Reagan, all of the Kennedys, Louis Pasteur, Richard Nixon and so many others. So, De Veaux's biography of Lorde is quite lengthy, and it needs to be. And it marks the fact that the significance of Audre Lorde is tremendous; she deserves this kind of careful attention.

[Jamie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wah wah, just read Zami instead. De Veaux makes...an effort? but the biography basically results in a "Audre did this; Audre did that; Audre moved here; Audre moved there" and a who's-who of the people Lorde fucked. Has a certain factual weight, but feels very thin; not to mention, de Veaux just does not make a case for locating Lorde culturally/historically. Where is the discussion of lesbian bar culture? (A measly paragraph with lipservice to butch/femme terminology.) Where's the elaboration of women's political communities in the 70s/80s? Why does De Veaux not even attempt to rethink "Lesbian" with regard to Lorde's very obvious refashioning of the 'identity' as a kind of motivated worldview that lies in a 'beyond'-orientation space?

It also just doesn't...thrill in any way. If I hadn't know Lorde before, I'd have no interest in reading further. Again, go to the poetry. Go to Zami. Then, if you must, see this biography. But don't start here; you'll forget all about Lorde if you do.

[Jes]

I am not sure how to articulate what was so frustrating about this biography.

First, the good: it’s clear that this was an exhaustively researched labor of love, and I am very glad that this account of Lorde’s life exists. There were a few soaring moments—I loved the final paragraphs of the epilogue and her gloss of “Eye to Eye” (my favorite Lorde essay). I also appreciated that de Veaux does not try to smooth out Lorde’s rough edges. I struggled with this initially, but ultimately I felt like I appreciated the clear-eyed look at the parts of Lorde that were very human: her capacity for selfishness, jealousy, rage towards her perceived enemies, and that very specific brand of narcissism that all poets seem to cultivate (probably out of necessity, since the world does not necessarily ask for or want poetry, and so you have to generate the inward sense that your work is necessary).

That said: sometimes reading this biography felt like reading a very long, dutifully written assigned paper. Sometimes I really, legitimately could not tell if de Veaux even liked Lorde, or felt any sense of passionate connection to her work. Whole chunks of the book were written in this strangely detached tone, like she was working so hard to be neutral that she just presented us with a record of the facts (where Lorde went, what she said, what she ate, who she saw) without interpretation or really any explanation of why this mattered in the broader arc of Lorde’s life/thought. It was even weirder to me because I think of Lorde as someone whose work was passionately personal. Her entire body of work is basically an argument against the fiction of objectivity, against divorcing structural analysis from the personal. For Lorde, an analysis of the deep emotional structures of our lived experiences is what enables us to understand and begin to dismantle the violent structures of white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism.

I just kept thinking like, why adopt a super traditional narrative structure, tone, and approach to writing about the life of someone whose work is basically a rejection of those traditions? I spent the whole book wondering, Will it become clear?? Will I understand by the end? It did not; I do not. My best theory right now is: I wonder if it was maybe a personal/political decision on de Veaux’s part to let Lorde speak for herself. Like, maybe she chose to avoid reinterpreting Lorde’s work and instead focused on building out the context around the work as a way of respecting the versions of her life that Lorde crafts (and revises, over and over again) in her poetry and fiction. Idk. I don’t find that theory (or this biography, unfortunately) all that emotionally satisfying.

[Gabriella · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great follow-up to last year’s book club read of Sister Outsider. Alexis De Veaux’s biography of Audre Lorde helps further break down the mythology of this poet, by providing a decades-long account of how she loved her life. During the introduction, De Veaux notes that she faced a “struggle between justice to Audre Lorde and justice to the historical record.” (xii) I think that anyone who’s expecting a hagiographic account of Lorde’s life should keep looking—there are other biographies of this figure that might be more up your alley 🌚. But, as a former PK, I am always looking for the HONEST account of the man/woman/person of God—like yes we know what they did politically or publicly, but how did they treat their families? Did the people who saw them everyday—not just the ones who watched their speeches every week—actually find them to practice what they were preaching? It’s an everpresent question for me, and De Veaux will not fail those us of compelled to ask it.

One item I was less certain about: why De Veaux chose to end the biography before the final six years of Lorde’s life, which were arguably those most impacted by her cancer. De Veaux frames this choice as her not wanting to overemphasize the last part of Lorde’s life, but from the glimpses we do see of that time, I would’ve loved to hear more about it! It seemed like it allowed her to finally achieve the communal environment she was looking for, AND it seems that Lorde’s experience with cancer WAS an important part of her life. I don’t see how including more information about her final years would have overshadowed the rest of the biography—rather, I think it would have added context to it. After all, in De Veaux’s own words,

fear of the possibility of cancer, of susceptibility to it, never left her. This fear of a life-threatening disease was greater than any fear she’d ever contended with. Thereafter, the magnitude of that fear split Lorde’s life in two. Though she continued to evolve as a writer, activist, and woman, fear of cancer seeded Lorde’s second life. (193)

This was a different time!!
Audre Lorde was born in 1934, which surprised me—she was 10 years older than my grandma, but if you’d asked me, I would’ve guessed she was 10 years older than my mom. De Veaux does an impeccable job of seeding chronological context and import in this biography, starting with an explanation of how Lorde was part of this distinctive generation that came of age after the Harlem Renaissance, during the Great Depression, but before World War II. As someone who loves to read about the political formations of Black Gen X, I appreciated this biographer’s interest in the generational foundations of a woman who left her mark on countless Black Gen Xers.

Whether intentionally or not, De Veaux focuses on lots of particularities in Lorde’s world that have changed rapidly today—partially because of her writing. For instance, I didn’t realize that cancer wasn’t discussed as openly in the 1970s and 80s, nor did I understand how pivotal The Cancer Journals was to many of the people who read it. Similarly, I am a bit hazy on my understanding the American left’s resistance to the Cold War’s arms race. Lorde’s refusal to participate in air raid drills and participation in anti-nuclear societies will likely send me down yet another reading rabbithole in the near future!

One thing that has and hasn’t changed in 2026 is the need for independent publishers, particularly to provide a broader variety of literature for queer readers. I recently discussed this in the comments section of another review, but to this day, there is a dearth of Black lesbian literature being published by mainstream presses—even when they are publishing more white lesbian and/or Black gay male authors than ever before. In Lorde’s time, and in ours, there is the need for alternatives like Kitchen Table Press to get the books we long for as readers!!! This is a bit delusional, but one of my dreams is to co-found a small press focused on Black sapphic fiction, similar to what the white trans women did with Topside Press in the 2010s. 😭

Another cool “blast from the past” here was seeing the essays from Sister Outsider unfold in real time! We see her 1968 residency at Tougaloo (when she meets Frances Clayton), the fights her kids experienced when they moved to Staten Island, and her trips to Grenada before and after the U.S. invasion. I was a bit disappointed that we didn’t get anything about Audre Lorde and Barbara Smith blacklisting June Jordan in 1982 because of Jordan’s writing in support of Palestine, which took Lorde’s friend (and crush!) Adrienne Rich to task for Rich’s Zionism. I talk more about all this in the Sister Outsider review, but this behavior casts a dark shadow over a lot of Lorde’s statements in Sister Outsider, AND over her later pro-Palestinian statements—because she never went back and owned up to being dead wrong in the past!!! I think it’s fair that De Veaux didn’t go into detail—from my understanding, much of this debacle was uncovered recently thanks to the fantastic archival work of Marina Magloire, compiled in her piece in the LA Review of Books, Moving Towards Life.

It’s sad because of course these are serious topics but this book is literally reminding me of something I’d see on r/polyamory
However, what De Veaux DOES help us fill in the background of is that there is TRULY NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN. I say this a lot when reading historical fiction and nonfiction, but specifically as Black and lesbian people, we have been dealing with THE SAME ARGUMENTS FOR DECADES IF NOT CENTURIES. Lorde’s relationship with Ed Rollins was basically an expansive lavender marriage that spun off from an NYC polycule. There was a lot of messy cuckolding involved, including an alleged therapist who was known for wanting to fuck their clients. If you told me the plot without character names, I’d tell you it was happening in Durham in 2026, not New York in 1976!!! So it goes to show things have been the same for a while, it’s just more out in the open today.

Another takeaway I had from all the drama here is that WE NEED ASEXUALITY SO BADLYYYYY. 95% of the 1982 witch hunt against June Jordan was caused by Audre Lorde’s unprecedented levels of hormones and wanting to fuck everyone involved. What they said about the Michigan coach and lust having the potential to ruin your life, someone should’ve told this lady!!!! She wanted to fuck June Jordan, but also hated June Jordan because she was bi instead of being a lesbian, and was more accepted by Black people (IDK, maybe this is because June Jordan didn’t enjoy the moral superiority she could gain from being a fly in the milk, unlike SOME PEOPLE?!?!) When June Jordan didn’t want to hatefuck her, Audre Lorde decided to sabotage Jordan’s attempts to work with her agent, who—mind you—Lorde also wanted to sleep with. Years later in 1982, it seems that the defense of Adrienne Rich was ALSO an example of lust running amok—just see this quote from De Veaux:

Lorde tried to turn her attraction to Rich and Cliff into opportunities to bed them, separately She once told Rich she could not, in principle, trust a white woman she had not slept with. Neither Rich nor Cliff was interested in Lorde sexually and both resisted her persistent attempts at seduction. (182)

Final take: superiority complexes are just as dangerous as uncontrolled horniness
So all in all, Warrior Poet provides us with another example of someone having great political takes, but a terrible expression of their professed political values in the arena of their interpersonal relationships. De Veaux reveals Lorde as a domineering and inpatient mother who had many contradictory political values about how to raise her kids. She also was contradictory in her marriage, like when she was mad at her husband for supporting the Vietnam War, but then she was literally beating him!!!! Like ma’am, apparently BOTH of y’all have a terrible relationship to violence then.

Not only was she incredibly demanding and controlling to her nuclear family (like what do you MEAN your kids can’t enter the entire second floor of THEIR HOME?), but she was also a controlling and predatory collaborator to her colleagues! De Veaux shows us how Lorde constantly tried to capitalize off younger lesbian’s admiration of her, and turn them into her new side pieces. Even outside of the sexual manipulation, this lady couldn’t have a non-condescending relationship with anyone younger than her and that’s a problem. Several fellow writers found that “there came a point when…Lorde stepped over the line between being helpful and controlling.” (183) This is a common problem with making age into a hierarchical relationship—some people never grow out of their desire to have the upper hand over others, which means that they can’t enjoy any situation where they don’t feel “on top.” It’s an isolating, damaging, and unfulfilling way to live, and the sad thing is it’s almost always avoidable if people would just stop looking down on others. As a Virgo, I’ve actually found that the practice of being less judgmental even enables me to find more compassion for myself!!!!

Let’s end on a happier note, because I understand this woman and her work means so much to so many!!! I’m especially glad to see that the end of Lorde’s life allowed some of the things she’d expressed a desire for many decades beforehand—the kind of belonging that we all deserve, and many of us are striving for today. I’ll let De Veaux take us home:

As Lorde spent more time in the Caribbean, and she and Joseph took a subsequent trip to Anguilla, she grew to feel that being in the Caribbean with Gloria Joseph was especially affirming—not simply because she felt like a Caribbean woman at home, but because she was there with a black woman who was also at home, and more so than she. Joseph’s ease in the Caribbean, her familiarity with island peoples and customs, shaped Lorde’s own sense of being familiar, of being taken for local. And the Caribbean became a place where she felt, “I am one among many.” Gloria embodied the spiritual medicine she needed: sunlight, laughter, healthy living, a shared political life, a black female centered emotional space that was soul-satisfying. (359)

[Eleanor Cowan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this bio well-written and of a high authorial standard.

After reading it, I wondered about this brave poet who contested the hypocrisy of her times. For this she merits praise, great respect and thanks. Yet, I wondered how many women learned harsh lessons from Ms. Lorde? A number of times, as I read, I was reminded of Ayn Rand, who helped herself to a married man, Nathaniel Brandon, simply because she was being 'honest.' She wanted him. Period. Never mind the deeply hurt wife who turned herself inside out to accept her loss. I wonder how Lorde's partner and co-mother of two children handled Lorde's sense of sexual entitlement? I got the sense that just as Lorde's parents were distant, that Lorde herself was distant too. After all, how many deep relationships can one nurture over the long haul?

Did Lorde's righteous anger splash a little wildly and hurtfully too?

Out of Lorde's voiced anger, insight, and clear thinking, the world improved. I know we all have to bear with each other's flaws as much as possible, but as I put down the book, I thought that it might have been dangerous for me to have been Lorde's friend.

Eleanor Cowan, author of A History of a Pedophile's Wife: Memoir of a Canadian Teacher and Writer

[Shakerra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audre Lorde's story is amazing, and the level of detail that the author goes into is extraordinary. Unfortunately, it can also be a bit tiring. It is clear that the author admires and cares for Audre so she wanted to paint as accurate and clear a picture of her as possible. She goes to great pains to look at Audre's life objectively. However, at times this book turns into a chronology of the mundane. It was hoping for a deeper understanding of Audre Lorde. She is a woman with many, many layers. However, I think in an effort to do too much (maybe?), the author gave too much detail. In the end, it felt a bit sterile.

That said, it is definitely worth reading. I'd also recommend reading Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. It is interesting to contrast the two tellings of Audre Lorde's life - one from her own perspective, the other from someone else.

Despite my feelings about the book, I am incredibly grateful that someone is telling her story.

[Sonja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of rich detail about Audre Lorde’s life, this is an important book about a leader and a voice that has influenced our times greatly. Because she died of cancer and had to struggle with the disease, I felt sad when the book ended but that struggle too is important for our times. Most of the book shows her life in the context of the 70s and 80s when the women’s liberation, civil rights and gay and lesbian movements were at their height.
Reading the life of this great black lesbian poet, I realize how much she influenced me (I am not black but a political radical and a lesbian). While she was alive I read her poetry and Zami and followed her breakthrough accomplishments and appearances. I read eagerly the details of her life and experienced parallels events. How she moved from knowing her attraction to women to marriage to a man and the identification as a lesbian.
Her poetry is woven in minimally, enough to get a taste. Her struggles with the publishing world was an important breakthrough for black and lesbian writers. “Audre Lorde became the first out black lesbian to crash the gates of the literary mainstream.”
I also loved how deVeaux includes background on other people important to Lorde’s life—June Jordon, Sonia Sanchez, Pat Parker, Michelle Cliff—and details the great gathering of black cultural figures FESTAC in Lagos, which was ignored in the Western media.

De Veaux writes academically and a bit drily for my taste but her thorough research and accurate portrayal had a warm and trusting effect on me, the reader. Unfortunately, Audre’s passionate character and strong political convictions did not come through in the book. I love some of de Veaux’s bold and honest statements: “Neither Rich nor Cliff was interested in Lorde sexually and both resisted her persistent attempts at seduction.”
In her most important work, Zami “ Lorde’s spiritual connection to the ‘zami’ women of Carriacou contextualizad her lesbianism within a ‘new living the old in a new way.’” We see Lorde in her travels, adopting a transnational blackness not unlike what Malcolm X was moving towards at his death. That view toward solidarity with people beyond borders is what I love and feel in the end about Audre Lorde as a poet leader. All in all this book shows that Audre Lorde took important strides that helped Black women, lesbians, and really all women today and in the future.

[Jalisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really struggled through this. It took me months (during which I read three other books) and I've been sitting with why. It finally hit me that I struggled through this book because it shows Lorde in all her complexity - in not only the shining light of her genius, but in the dark side of her petulance and constant need for recognition. It portrayed her in all of her humanity which in turn forced me to look at myself in all my dark and light. That's the beauty of this biography. It doesn't white wash anything about Audre Lorde and allows you to truly understand the inner and outer work it takes to be at the top of your game and reminds us that all of our greats are fallible humans. We all fear our own mortality and relevance. We change our opinions and positions as we expand our awareness of the world around us. We make mistakes in our interpersonal relationships. We need and sometimes ask for more than we give. But through it all we make our mark. We contribute to our collective growth and liberation. I'm thankful for Lorde's gift and the work Alexis De Veaux did to contextualize and humanize the person behind the art.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

thank god for this book. i finally have some context in which to put the masses of audre lorde poems i have loved for so many years. this is the first of many biographies of audre lorde (i dearly hope).

[Craig Werner]

Well done biography of a crucial activist writer--Warrior Poet says it well--whose influence has continued to grow since her untimely death from cancer. (Her book The Cancer Journals is excellent, as her autobiomythography Zami.). De Veaux sympathizes with Lorde, traces her ideas to their genesis in the Sixties firment, along with her emergence as a central figure in the lesbian-feminist movement (though, as De Veaux makes clear, Lorde never accepted any sort of reductive identity label.). Likely to remain the standard biography.

[Renee Pelletier]

I just wanted de Veaux to like Audre. I can understand treating her as an unreliable narrator, but I don’t think that has to be the same as treating her with suspicion. This book is very suspicious of Audre Lorde. I was startled to see a group photograph in the book that listed both Audre Lorde and de Veaux as pictured—so de Veaux knew Lorde, moved in the same circles. But we never get to hear about any of that. Still, it’s the fastest way to learn about Lorde, as it is a logically written digestion of her archives and interviews with those who surrounded her.

[Kandace · Rating 5 out of 5]

On my biography journey I read a chapter of this book a day and found it to be rich with thoughtful insights into the personality and deep readings of Audre Lorde’s work. That her legacy lives beyond her is evident in how fiercely she worked for this to be true. A who’s who in multicultural and lesbian “second wave” feminism - essential reading for the feminist scholar. De Veaux seamlessly integrates Lorde’s poetry amongst Lorde’s writerly and personal transformations. A deeply satisfying book that deserves revisiting since Lorde’s passing in the early 90s.

[Cait · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite simply, I loved this book. I felt that Alexis de Veaux provided readers with a great sense of who Audre was beyond/within/in spite/because of her self-invention and significance as a feminist literary icon. Knowing Audre's insecurities, fears, anxieties, heartaches, mistakes, etc. only left me in deeper awe and respect for her work, the way she attempted to live her life, and what an immeasurable contribution she made to the world during her too-brief
life. The did think she rushed things a bit at the end, and there could have been a smoother transition into Audre's decline and death. However, she said she wanted the book to be about her life, not her illness, and it was. I was so sad upon finishing the book, because Audre was gone all over again. It moved me to tears, and I can't stop thinking about it since I've finished.

This is such an important book to have out there, because Audre's life and her works provide a much-needed model for wumyn all over the world engaging in struggles with oppression and silence. Furthermore, it is one of the few books to grant Audre the critical attention and appreciation she deserves as a a major international poet and scholar, social figure, and thinker of the 20th century.

[Pia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this in one sitting during a delicious browsing session at my local B&N bookstore. I deeply admire Audre Lorde's vision, words, and accomplishments, so I was excited about this book. While I understand that every public figure as her inherent contradictions, I was disappointed that his analysis of Lorde often focused on what Deveaux interprets as her difficult personality and domestic inequalities between her and her long-term partner, Francis. In fact, I wanted to hear way more from Lorde herself, rather than Deveaux's interpretation.

[Laura Daniels · Rating 5 out of 5]

After participating in a poetry workshop that touched on breaking through silence, I wanted to take a deeper dive into Audre Lorde's life (1934 - 1992). She was born in Harlem to Grenadian parents and was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1978. In 1952, she worked at Keystone Electronics with carbon tetrachloride and low doses of radiation—things don't occur in a vacuum. She was married for seven years to Ed Rollins. She is a woman who was also a lesbian and black and a feminist, but I hesitate to write this and try to "define her" because she was much more than all these things.

I did a deeper dive to read her essays: Poetry Is Not a Luxury and The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action.
"... Lorde was central to the development of contemporary feminist theory...
(paraphrasing) poetry....is a distillation of imagination into insight
for women, then, poetry is not a luxury - it gives a name to the nameless... so it can be thought.
... and where language does not yet exist, our poetry helps to fashion it...
dreams are made through our poems that give strength and courage to see, to feel, to speak, and to dare...
poetry cannot be discounted as a luxury - if it is, we give up the core - the fountain - of our power, our womanness; we give up the futures of our worlds...
what is most important must be spoken... even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood... breaking the silence is a source of power... it is not difference that immobilizes us, it is silence....

[Magali]

[DNF'd at around 20%]

So that one I'm not rating. Honestly, it's my fault. I don't know why I wanted to read it for so long, I know that biographies are not my thing. I love memoirs/autobiographies, I usually don't like biographies. But after reading Lorde's poetry and Sister Outsider, I wanted to read about her so much that I kinda convinced myself that this time I would enjoy a biography.

I will still say that two things really made me stop reading :
- The fact that there is a huge lack of editing. Honestly, we don't need to know every person Audre Lorde met, and we especially don't need a mini-biography of everyone she crosses path with. That is not interesting and makes the story impossible to really follow.
- I hate it when biographers think they can present an objective story. A life can't be objective. A life isn't just fact. If you tell the story of someone's life, you can't have moments where you tell "she felt like that but her sisters say it actually happened like that". To me it makes no sense and basically just de-centers the subject of the biography which is not okay.

I'm sad I didn't like this book, I wanted to know more about Audre Lorde so much.

[Caleb · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is not riveting, but it sheds light on Audre Lorde's life, widening the picture that people get from reading Zami or The Cancer Journals to understand the many strands she was pulling together over decades. The narrative style is very factual, which might be a bit dry for some readers. I enjoyed it for the windows into Lorde's personal journals and the insight into the nuts and bolts of her process...its amazing how creativity over the course of a life emerges in fits and starts from the perspective of the artist, but the product can be transformative for so many readers.

[Lauren J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

i didn't know a lot about Audre Lorde before I read this book. De Veaux gives a very compelling and interesting history of Lorde. Her description of her relationships, writing, career and fam,ily are very well written. It is told from a nonjudgemental perspective. Lorde's life was complex and non-linear. She truly made a differerence in the professional field and she paved the way for future lesbians and gay people to be themselves. A very good book!

[Yamilet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reads more like a novel, I was hooked.

[steds · Rating 5 out of 5]

Compelling, complex biography. Great for any and all Lorde-heads.

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very useful book for getting an overview of Lorde's life and work, but I was left wanting more. I'd been hoping to find more in-depth discussion of Lorde's writing processes and more discussion of what was referred to as Lorde's "theory of difference" -- there was a bit more telling than showing on that subject. Though there was a fairly extensive cataloging of Lorde's relationships with women, at some points the various women felt interchangeable, which contrasted with Zami, where the women Lorde was involved with were described in much more specific detail. I also had hoped for more on Lorde's discussion of self-care as a political act -- just checked and the quote I'm thinking of is from her Burst of Light (1988), which falls somewhat outside of De Veaux's timeframe, since she doesn't discuss much of Lorde's last years. However, very glad to have read this as a starting point (especially after reading Zami), but thinking that more of Lorde's own writings will be next.

[Sokari Ekine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading through the life of Audre Lorde. De Veaux breaks through the myths and iconic status of Lorde and takes us on a journey of Lorde’s transformation from lesbian “gal” to poet. social activist, cancer survivor and finally black feminist lesbian warrior poet. A homage to a great Black lesbian feminist woman - no one has come near Audre Lorde as yet - De Veaux is nonetheless brave enough to give us details of the not so pleasant side of Lorde such as her taking of amphetamines and bouts of abusive anger. She also lays open Lorde’s relationship to white women which up to the last 10 years, dominated her friendships and affairs and her somewhat ambivalant relationship to Black women. All of which makes Lorde even more of an exceptional human being given that she had flaws like the rest of us. Excellent first biogrpahy.

[Jackie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this book! I picked it up not knowing much beyond a slight familiarity with Audre Lorde's name, and what an interesting human I learned she was! I liked how the author not only told the story of Lorde's life but also described how the different life events influenced her thinking about feminism, being Black, and her sexuality within the context of what was going on society and the specific areas and movements that Lorde's work was impacting. It seemed that the author had access to many of Lorde's journals to bring the first person account and views to light. I would recommend this book, though a bit lengthy, for those even a little bit interested in who Audre Lorde was and the influence she had in the world through her poetry and connections she made who shared some parts of her identities.

[Anicka Austin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The amount of research that went into this book is astounding. De Veaux left no stone unturned. I appreciate her balanced, yet admittedly (sometimes) harsh perspective on Lorde's life and decision-making. Lorde was both generous and selfish, fierce and insecure, loving and standoffish. She was a whole person. It also gives some perspective into where her ideas stemmed.

There is definitely some room for the next author who wants to choose a section of Lorde's life to delve into. Warrior Poet is both broad and detailed and I'm looking forward to reading a more narrowly focused biography on Lorde. I agree with some other readers that some of the exhaustive details felt unnecessary and dryly written. I understand this approach (to give a full and exacting look at her life), but it did make some sections difficult to get through.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to write biographies like this one. De Veaux is thorough and engaging, her writing flows, she simultaneously de-mythifies Lorde while respecting the public persona that Lorde created for herself. Not only is her research of Lorde's life and work admirable, but also she gives brief biographies of nearly all of Lorde's friends and colleagues (which really help to explain how Lorde knew each person and was attracted to them). Lacking is Frances Clayton's voice (Lorde's longtime lover who refused to speak to De Veaux on the project), and I think De Veaux made a good decision not to include Lorde's last few years, which were spent struggling against the cancer that killed her. Instead, she focuses on the "productive" years of Lorde's life. A wonderful book.

[thinker bell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inspirational Audre Lorde. She actually reminds me of someone I'm very close to and now I have more insight as to why my special someone is the way they are and how not much has changed in the feminist movement that does not talk about the root causes of the injustices working class lesbians of color face today. It also saddened me that my generation of queer identified, non heterosexual people do not know the long journey and struggle our LGBTQ ancestors paved for us to have what we have now and we have taken for granted what we have today, while not continuing to struggle for the issues that remain.

[Bre · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audre Lorde described herself as 'black, feminist, lesbian, mother, poet warrior.' While DeVeaux definitely did her research and was clearly in awe of Lorde, I feel that there was a certain coldness in her work. The lack of discussion surrounding her personal relationships (aside from a list of lovers) was odd and disappointing to me. Frances Clayton, Beth, and Jonathan were just kind of 'there' in the background. I feel like the author skipped over most of Lorde's 'mother' life and focused almost exclusively on her activism. Obviously she was an amazing poet, feminist, and social activist. But she was also a mother and a partner/wife. Disappointing on that level....

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was pretty juicy, haha. I thought De Veaux did an excellent job complicating and illuminating Lorde's personality, relationships, writing career and legacy. I felt it was overly academic at times, and I was disappointed that De Veaux chose to end the book in 1986 instead of 1992 because she "did not want to overemphasize the cancer." I don't understand that. Audre Lorde lived six more years. Why was this part of her (disabled) experience left out? Overall, though, I really enjoyed it.

[Jacoby · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was really wonderful to read the particulars of Audre Lorde's life, and to see how all of the other lesbian and gay authors of that time related to her. It was also really wonderful just to be able to see her as a person who also made mistakes, who was a jerk sometimes. It was well written and I appreciated the statement by the author at the beginning.

[Jerrie · Rating 2 out of 5]

So disappointed in the book. I had such high hopes for it and was excited to read her biography. Sadly the author does a poor job of making this an exciting read. The title is way more exciting than the book itself. The whole book is an array of facts about Audrey lorde that the author recites for us one after the other.