Sunday, March 20, 2011

Thought for the Day

. . . For women, then, poetry is not a luxury.
It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms
the quality of the light within which we predicate
our hopes and dreams toward survival and change,
first made into language, then into idea, then into more 
tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to
the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons
of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems,
carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives. . . .
~ Audre Lorde*

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* From Audre Lorde, "Power, Oppression and the Politics of Culture: A Lesbian/Feminist Perspective", 4th Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Mt. Holyoke College, August 23-25, 1978 (excerpt, pp 23-25)


Audre Lorde on Modern American Poetry


Audre Lorde Profile at New York State Writers Institute/SUNY


Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays & Speeches (Crossing Press, 2007), GoogleBooks




Audre Lorde - The Berlin Years (FaceBook) This is about a film by Dagmar Schultz and Zara Zandieh, who expect to release the documentary in Winter 2011/2012.

Alexis de Veaux, Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde, GoogleBooks

3 comments:

Ruth said...

Giving names to the nameless. Yep, that's it.

S. Etole said...

It's an interesting statement she has made ... "Your silence will not protect you."

the sad red earth said...

"There are many kinds of open
how a diamond comes into a knot of flame
how sound comes into a words, coloured
by who pays what for speaking."

Audre Lorde, "Coal"