Happy Birthday, Audre Lorde

Forever grateful.

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Audre Lorde, self-described: “Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet.” Born this day. Forever necessary. Learn a little more here.

From: The Uses of the Erotic, from Sister Outsider

In touch with the erotic, I become less willing to accept powerlessness, or those other supplied states of being which are not native to me, such as resignation, despair, self-effacement, depression, self-denial.

And yes, there is a hierarchy. There is a difference between painting a back fence and writing a poem, but only one of quantity. And there is, for me, no difference between writing a good poem and moving into sunlight against the body of a woman I love.

From: A Litany for Survival

...[W]hen we are loved we are afraid

love will vanish

when we are alone we are afraid

love will never return

and when we speak we are afraid

our words will not be heard

nor welcomed

but when we are silent

we are still afraid

So it is better to speak

remembering

we were never meant to survive.