Audre Lorde

A somewhat serendipitous occurance (two mentions of the same essay, "Uses of the Erotic" by Audre Lorde in a 24 hour span of time, one of which was in my Christian Worship class, in discussions of the history of Queer Theory and Theology - a whole different topic to write on sometime) sent me back to her collection of essays, called Sister Outsider which was published more than 20 years ago. My copy of it (it was, of course, one of the books I kept) is a bit creased, yellowed, and familiar. I hadn't looked at it in quite a while, though. My most salient memory of the book was when I moved to Colorado in 1987, it was in the hands of someone who would later become my housemate and good friend, the first time we met. I remembered that, because I had just finished reading it only a week before.

I stole an hour or so from my studying over a quiet dinner this evening to re-read a few of the essays. One of the first things that struck me was that she was writing a lot of these things at about the same age as I am now - in her late 40s. And somehow, each time I return to her work, I'm reminded of how she was such an amazing observer and critic of our society. And, ultimately, how timeless her writing is.

I re-read her classic essay "Poetry Is Not a Luxury." Here is one of my favorite quotes from that essay:

For within living structures defined by profit, by linear power, by institutional dehumanization, our feelings were not meant to survive. Kept around as unavoidable adjuncts or pleasant pastimes, feelings were expected to kneel to thought as women were expected to kneel to men. But women have survived. As poets. And there are no new pains. We have felt them all already. We have hidden that fact in the same place where we have hidden our power. They surface in our dreams, and it is our dreams that point the way to freedom. Those dreams are made realizable through our poems that give us strength and courage to see, to feel, to speak, and to dare.

 I know that Audre's brand of Black lesbian feminist thought of the 1980s has, in it's time, given way to postmodernism and queer theory on one hand, and womanist theory on the other. But I think there is still so much to learn from her insights.

technorati tags: poetry, writing, feminism, queertheory