The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

by Audre Lorde, Roxane Gay (Editor)

A definitive selection of Audre Lorde’s "intelligent, fierce, powerful, sensual, provocative, indelible" (Roxane Gay) prose and poetry, for a new generation of readers.

Self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet" Audre Lorde is an unforgettable voice in twentieth-century literature, and one of the first to center the experiences of black, queer women. This essential reader showcases her indelible contributions to intersectional feminism, queer theory, and critical race studies in twelve landmark essays and more than sixty poems—selected and introduced by one of our most powerful contemporary voices on race and gender, Roxane Gay.

Among the essays included here are:
• "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action"
• "The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House"
• "I Am Your Sister"
• Excerpts from the American Book Award–winning A Burst of Light

The poems are drawn from Lorde’s nine volumes, including The Black Unicorn and National Book Award finalist From a Land Where Other People Live. Among them are:
• "Martha"
• "A Litany for Survival"
• "Sister Outsider"
• "Making Love to Concrete"

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

367 pages, Paperback

First published September 8, 2020

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

[Taylor Reid]

I have to admit one of my favorite Audre Lorde poems is on the theme of motherhood, “Progress Report.” You can find it in this new collection, out just last September—now with a foreword by Roxane Gay. It also includes the seminal essay, The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Except for a brief book of correspondence between Lorde and Pat Parker (Sister Love: The Letters of Audre Lorde and Pat Parker 1974-1989,) I didn't have any experience with Lorde's work, just knew her as a reference point for other poets and thinkers. This is a solid introduction to her work, half essays and speeches, half selections from poetry collections spanning her career. The power she speaks from cannot be compared (and how frustrating that her writing from the 80s feels so timely, a bad sign that truly little has changed.) She speaks openly about being black, a feminist, and a lesbian, and is ready to confront your hangups about any of it. She is not going to make you feel comfortable. The journal of her second bout with cancer is also included.

The poems wrestle with history but also react to current events (now historical), praise her lover's body, and address the black community as well. When she hints at how she feels she is relearning rather than seeing this all for the first time, it feels true.

This just scratches the surface. The brief intro by Roxane Gay is not a full length scholarly commentary. I hope that exists. If it doesn't, it needs to.

[Jonfaith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yet all too often, guilt is just another name for impotence, for defensiveness destructive of communication; it becomes a device to protect ignorance and the continuation of things the way they are, the ultimate protection for changelessness.

We went out early Saturday morning to walk at Cherokee Park and enjoy the brisk weather and rolling fog. We ducked into Carmichael's on the way back to the car and I found this one on a display of new poetry. Allow us to sing the praises of the bookshop. It is the unexpected which remains such an engine for the imagination.

I read the essays first and then the poetry and then circled back to read the Cancer Diaries. I felt the power of each. It is strange how the essays from the early 1970s through the invasion of Grenada in 1983 sound so timely.

[cass krug · Rating 4 out of 5]

absolutely loved the prose section and am so excited to read the rest of her full-length collections. it was a lot of poetry to get through and it would probably be better to dip in and out of it, but still obviously beautifully written. i listened to the last 30% on audio and appreciated hearing the poems spoken even more than reading them!

she changed my life with uses of the erotic, talking about how we need to look at all aspects of our life through the lens of the joy we know we’re capable of feeling, and see what aspects do/don’t align with that feeling:

“For once we begin to feel deeply all the aspects of our lives, we begin to demand from ourselves and from our life-pursuits that they feel in accordance with that joy which we know ourselves to be capable of. Our erotic knowledge empowers us, becomes a lens through which we scrutinize all aspects of our existence, forcing us to evaluate those aspects honestly in terms of their relative meaning within our lives. And this is a grave responsibility, projected from within each of us, not to settle for the convenient, the shoddy, the conventionally expected, nor the merely safe.”

[N · Rating 5 out of 5]

A towering collection of writings. Just WOW. But being a reader of essays and prose, I have decided to write a brief reflection on some of Audre Lorde's essays. But her poetry is equally as thrilling and powerful and so much to write about.

Being a gay English teacher teaching kids of color, having read Audre Lorde's essays and poetry was a mind-blowing experience that is not going to leave me anytime soon. "A Burst of Light" was an honest and raw insight into Lorde's experience and feelings of terror having been diagnosed with cancer. But she also writes for those who are constantly othered in our society, being a black woman, and for those "who feel the tragedy of being an oppressed hyphenated person in America" (Lorde 98).

But it is sisterhood and creating safe spaces and chosen families is what makes life worth it, "learning to consciously extend ourselves to each other and to call upon each other's strengths is a life-saving strategy" (Lorde 156).

"Is Your Hair Political?" is a brilliant personal essay of Lorde being refused entry into Virgin Gorda because she wore her hair naturally. She was perceived as Rastafarian, stereotyped as being part of a violent community entrenched in crime and gang violence. It's the dream vacation turned into a nightmare due to racism and xenophobia.

In her essay, "I am your sister", she wants readers to understand that "it is a reality that is starkly clarified as we see our young people becoming more and more uncaring of each other...those stereotypes are yours to solve, not mine, and they are a terrible and wasteful barrier to our working together. I am not your enemy, we do not have to become each other's unique experiences and insights in order to share what we have learned" (Lorde 80).

Like so many of our black artists who have moved us teachers, writers and readers, such as Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes, Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde definitely is placed with those goddesses of the black experience.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is hard to critique or analyze Audre Lorde, so I won't try. Alongside James Baldwin and Angela Y. Davis, she is a person I would have loved to meet and just sit and listen to for hours and hours. Her passion, strength, intelligence, power, and her deep and abiding love for her work is incredible. Her writings always leave me breathless. She writes with such force and love and care. I will admit to struggling with poetry, with the reading of it. I love words and language and how it can transform. But I read mostly prose, and often forget that poetry requires another mindset, another way. So while I battle to fully absorb the linguistic mastery of Lorde's poetics, I can truly say she never fails to draw me in and amaze me.
The world lost a treasure with Lorde's passing. We can honor her awesomeness by dwelling on her words and then transforming them into positive change.
Essential work.

[Jeanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of these differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken. – Lorde (1977), The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action

I read Audre Lorde because her prose is yummy, because she makes me think, and to come to better understand other views of the world.

Selected Works of Audre Lorde is a compilation of some of Lorde's prose and poetry (first the prose, then the poetry). I read selections sequentially within each section, but interspersed her poems in my reading of her essays.

I've read two of Lorde's books of essays in the past, so I enjoyed a reread of some essays. I've also read her last collection of poetry. It's interesting how pieces read differently in different contexts (and at different times). I enjoyed her essays more than in the past, although her poetry less. (That's not a slam on Lorde. I'm not a big fan of poetry.)

I particularly liked A Burst of Light, selections from her journal after she had been diagnosed with liver cancer (after having survived breast cancer).

I am often in pain and I fear that it will get worse. I need to sharpen every possible weapon against it, but even more so against the fear, or the fear of the fear, which is what is so debilitating. And I want to learn how to do that while there is still time for learning in some state before desperation. Desperation. Reckless through despair. –A Burst of Light, December 19, 1985

Does one simply get tired of living? I can't imagine right now what that would be like, but that is because I feel filled with a fury to live – because I believe life can be good even when it's painful – a fury that my energies just don't match my desires anymore. –A Burst of Light, December 24, 1985

The accuracy of that diagnosis [of liver cancer] has become less important than how I use the life I have. –A Burst of Light, November 6, 1986

I do not think about my death as being imminent, but I live my days against a background noise of mortality and constant uncertainty. –A Burst of Light, November 19, 1986

I appreciate Lorde's willingness to let us see her fear, her courage, and her willingness to live and die with awareness. I also appreciate seeing that her life was not only filled with death. During the period included here, she wrote from New York City, Ohio, Berlin, Cambridge, Melbourne, Michigan, Switzerland, Anguilla, St. Croix, and France. I'm tired just typing this list.

My thanks to Norton, which sent this book unrequested with another book that I did request.

[The Lesbian Library (Maddy) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Giving Audre lorde anything less than 5 stars is an actual crime. Whenever I’m down or feeling lost in life I pull out a few trusty essays or poems from Lorde and remember my own strength and ability. Forever thankful for her words🖤

[Jessie · Rating 5 out of 5]

December 9, 1985
New York City

A better question is—how do I want to live the rest of my life and what am I going to do to ensure that I get to do it exactly or as close as possible to how I want that living to be?
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 fire until it comes out of my ears, my eyes, my noseholes—everywhere. Until it's every breath I breathe. I'm going to go out like a fucking meteor!

- Lorde, A Burst of Light: Living with Cancer, The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

[Sophia Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

i annotated the hell out of this book. audre lorde needs to be talked about more.

[Ann Herrold · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible. You hear about how amazing Audre Lorde is but she is even better than people say. Her prose and poetry are both so visceral. She is the GOAT.

[Melissa Stacy · Rating 5 out of 5]

First published in 2020, "The Selected Works of Audre Lorde," by Audre Lorde, edited and introduced by Roxane Gay, is an excellent introduction to the poetry and prose of Audre Lorde (1934-1992).

I confess that I found this book dark AF. Reading about Lorde's cancer, in particular, was a long, hard trek through the grim. The essays about her personal encounters with overt racism added to the visceral truth of the unfairness and brutality that surrounded Lorde's life.

The essays deservedly come down hard on mainstream white feminism. As I write this review in 2021, it feels like mainstream feminism might have finally gotten the memo about internalized racism.

Lorde remains worth reading because Lorde remains ahead of her time, and ahead of our current time (2021).

This is such a heart-wrenching book. It's chock-full of so many horrible things that make me despair, but they're always coupled with Lorde's burning passion for change and unwavering hope for a better tomorrow.

I don't feel smart enough to read Lorde's poetry. I just don't have the intellectual bandwidth to make sense of it, or to get anything out of it.

Five stars for the essays. No rating for the poetry; I can't rate something that I can't make any sense of.

Highly recommended to anyone interested in Audre Lorde.

[maddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

beautiful collection of audre’s work spanning across her lifetime. “the cancer journals” in particular were absolutely gutting to read. i listened while crocheting and felt so immersed in her words. i read “warrior poet: a biography of audre lorde” by alexis de veaux toward the end of my time in college, and it provided so much critical context about her, her family, her loves, and her many fights that she so gracefully and valiantly fought (cancer, racism, lesbophobia, etc.) that made reading this collection all the more poignant. she was and is such a powerful force of a woman and an author.

[adelaide · Rating 4 out of 5]

tragically dnf because i’m only bringing books i’ve finished with me to school. i got through all the prose and i absolutely loved it (even if sometimes my brain felt a little small for her). i found it very politically inspiring and well-written. the poetry i read also banged and i plan to finish it over break.

[mia]

i love her essays

[Grace Barton · Rating 5 out of 5]

like yuppppp eat it up queen

[Fiona · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’d only ever read “The Master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house,” and since it’s quoted literally everywhere I thought I’d better get a better handle on Lorde’s corpus.

The most remarkable thing about Lorde is her commitment to empathy & her disdain for anything that would stunt our connections to one another. She insists that the only we we survive is together.

My favorite was “My mother’s mortar” but I felt physically ill for 5 minutes after finishing it so proceed with caution !

[María Gisela · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lot of what I usually read, both poetry and prose, tends to be very individual, but Lorde becomes the collective form of women by the way she focusses so intensely in the universal and the group. She is us, women, queer women, women of color. She speaks for herself and for all of us at once. She made me feel proud to be woman and queer and different, she made me want to scream that I exist, that I'm powerful, that I'm full of life, no matter how hard the world tries to extinguish me. This is the kind of feminism everyone needs, the one that confrots the issues and the living that happens through them, the one that never, never stops.

As much as Lorde symbolizes the sisterhood of women for me and made me feel so connected, it also reminded me of my priviledge and how much I need to fight for those that don't have it. It's my duty to not only be an empowered woman, through my poetry and my eroticism, but also to be educated and be and advocate, to fight for the feminist world both Lorde and I believe in, to use my anger for good.

Her essays are definitely my favorite and, as hard as it was to read, I felt I learned the most from her journals (A Burst of Life) about how to exist and fight and truly live a feminist life, no matter the circumstances. Her poetry was beautiful and her themes struck hard. She, again, talks about women, always keeping her sisters in the forefront of her mind. She touches on motherhood and queer relationships more openly that I think I've ever seen (and definitely more openly than I allow myself to be). She's political and conscious, educated and educational, she is a mother, a sister, a daughter, a lover. She is woman, before anything, she's black and queer and woman and she's loud and proud. She is a stepping stone in my path of becoming just that.

Some of my favorite poems were:
A Family Resemblance, Father Son and Holy Ghost, Generation, If You Come Softly, Martha, Making it, Progress Report, Chanfe of Season, Generation II, Conclusion, Who Said It Was Simple, New York City 1970, The American Cancer Society, A Sewerplant Grows In Harlem, Cables To Rage, Love Poem, Separation, Song For A Thin Sister, Revolution Is One Form Of Social Change, Power, Scar, Between Ourselves, Chain, A Litany For Survival, But What Can You Teach My Daughter, Sister Outsider, The Evening News, Afterimages, A Poem For Women In Rage, There Are No Honest Poems About Dead Women, Today Is Not The Day

[hope h. · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is another one of those books where i don't really know how to review it other than just: everyone should read this? audre lorde is so smart and so eloquent and this was an incredible selection of her works and i will be thinking about it for years

"we all hurt in so many different ways, all the time, and pain will either change or end. death, on the other hand, is the final silence. and that might be coming quickly, now, without regard for whether i had ever spoken what needed to be said, or had only betrayed myself into small silences, while i planned someday to speak, or waited for someone else's words.

...

i was going to die, if not sooner then later, whether or not i had ever spoken myself. my silences had not protected me. your silence will not protect you."

[Noah Tiegs · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 I think. Lorde’s essays and speeches and monumental, then and now. She is so clear in her understanding and analysis of patriarchy, white supremacy, heterosexism, classism - she’s just so… great.

I also found her journals during her bout with cancer to be really moving. I remember writing at one point like, “She’s just so full of life,” and she really was. And I find that really inspirational, I think. Her reflections on what was this all for, and trying to make sure her life was worth it was really interesting, too.

The poetry was a miss with me though, sadly! I think some of it was solid, but I think she went a bit more abstract than I like. Such is life!

[Crystal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reread some of the essays I'd originally read in previous collections of Lorde's work and, most notably, A Burst of Light which sounded slightly familiar but that could just from reading excerpts. Different lines caught my eye than the (maybe) first time. Also read some of the poetry after a quick comparison between her collected poetry collection and this one.

[Kathleen Ninke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely glad to have finished this excellent collection that served as my introduction to the e s s e n t i a l writer who is Audre Lorde. Long story short: she’s way too smart for me (surprise). I’m going to say I only understood like 30% of her poetry, but that 30% is world-changing.

Roxane Gay (perfect choice) edited and introduces this collection, which I found provided helpful context as I jumped into the work of the self-described “Black lesbian poet” Audre Lorde (1934-92). Half the book is Lorde’s prose, and the other half is her poetry.

Her prose covers a range of topics that are mostly 1. Womanhood and feminism 2. Queerness 3. Blackness and race relations in America 4. Her years-long and ultimately fatal battle with cancer. I found myself underlining like crazy. She comes across both academic and authentic. Her arguments–made 50 years ago–feel deeply of THIS moment–in a bad way. Like, reading this now, I’m thinking, is every modern activist forced to just repeat the words Audre Lorde said perfectly decades ago? How frustrating for them. It feels dumb, really, that we’re still asking women and Black folks and queer folks to justify their right to rights. I’m like, AUDRE ALREADY DID THIS. JUST GO BACK AND READ HER WORDS. YOU WILL BE CONVINCED. Anyway.

The poetry was much tougher for me to grasp. Gay presents the selected poems in chronological order of their publishing. I can’t tell if I enjoyed/connected with Lorde’s earlier poetry more because I just did…or because I lost my poetry-interpretation steam by the time I was reading her later stuff. I just don’t do well reading poetry without a sophomore lit teacher there to help.

I’ll finish with a collection of unrelated lines I noted:

We are hung up / in giving / what we wish to be given / ourselves.

We were free brown girls / Love singing beneath their skin

How the room felt / When your word was spoken / Warm / As the center of your palms / And as unfree.

What you took for granted once / you now refuse to take at all

Am I cursed forever with becoming / somebody else on the way to myself?

And sit here wondering / which me will survive / all these liberations.

[Júlia · Rating 5 out of 5]

encantada. apaixonada. fascinada.

É exatamente assim que eu fico quando penso na obra dessa mulher, já falei desse livro tantas vezes aqui que já nem sei mais por onde começar a falar sobre.

Conhecer a obra da Audre era uma das minhas metas pra esse ano, e eu to muito contente que eu comecei por esse livro que traz um compilado das obras dela em prosa e poemas. Eu gosto muito de conhecer o íntimo dos autores, saber as motivações deles, as paixões, conhecer os monstros, as coisas que eles odeiam, enfim o ser humano por trás e acho que esse é o papel desse livro.

Eu fiquei completamente fascinada como essa mulher não tinha medo de ser quem ela era e afirmar isso o tempo todo (embora cansativo, na época em que ela escreveu a maior parte dessas coisas, elas eram extremamente necessárias). Em um dos capítulos somos apresentados a um diário da autora que escreve sobre angústias, medos, esperança e negações de se viver com câncer. É um relato cru e honesto demais sobre a experiência dela. Eu fiquei muito comovida e chorei em algumas partes.

Os poemas são a cereja do bolo, eu que sou apaixonada por poesia fiquei apaixonada pela escrita dela, pelos tópicos que ela traz em poucas linhas. Comentei que “Martha” mexeu muito comigo, ele é uma ““carta”” para a primeira ex-namorada dela, é doloroso e bonito ao mesmo tempo.

É tão importante que a gente tenha acesso a pessoas como a Audre, ela contribui tanto pro mundo que a gente viveu e segue vivendo, ver a coragem dela de afirmar com todas as letras quem ela era é um exemplo enorme. Tô muito feliz e grata por ter a oportunidade de conhecer a obra dessa mulher gigante que foi uma ativista feminista, mulher negra e lésbica GIGANTE, que deixou um legado enorme pra todos nós.

Leiam, conheçam e se apaixonem por essa mulher.

[Monica Kim | Musings of Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Happy New Year! 🎉 I always start off the New Year reading with a nonfiction, specifically self-help & personal development, but decided to go with something else this year. Couple years ago when venerable Toni Morrison’s “The Source of Self-Regard” came out, I was having a conversation with someone about collections by literary giants. And I recall mentioning something about wanting Audre Lorde’s collection. So imagine my surprise when I found “The Selected Works of Audre Lorde” by Audre Lorde, Edited by Roxane Gay when I was browsing my local bookstore. I’m a big fan of Roxane Gay and follow her on social media & receive her newsletter, so I don’t know how I could have possibly missed this publication. But who better than Gay to curate & bring this collection together!
.
First published in 2020, this is an excellent, definitive selection of Audre Lorde’s poetry & prose. It is an impressive collection and thoughtfully curated & introduced by Gay. There are intimate & personal writings, but there is also wider issues Lorde advocated for that is as timely as ever and have the ability to educate. — mo✌️

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really solid collection of essays and poems from Audre Lorde! It's not my most favorite compilation of essays, as it didn't necessarily feel as tightly cohesive as some of her others I've read, but I do think that's sort of par for the course with a "Best Of" type approach such as this. It was actually my first time reading Lorde's poetry, and I enjoyed it overall, but I can't say it's my absolute favorite.

[agua · Rating 5 out of 5]

great selection of lorde’s work across essays, poems, journals & talks. it felt important to reread some of her crucial essays with the wider context of some other personal writing, particularly her diaries written during illness. wish there had been a zami excerpt!

[Francesca Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been coming to this book for so long without being able to finish it because I couldn’t stop rereading the same passages. What a fantastic collection wow this book is all around perfect. The essays in the beginning were undoubtedly a necessary read and paired with the poems for the second half it makes for a fantastic ending. Everyone needs to read Audre Lorde right now.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

My therapist loaned this to me because of Lorde’s writing on the functions of anger, and it really delivered. I love her work. I only give it 3 stars because a lot of her poetry is very beautiful and abstract and went over my head as someone who doesn’t love poetry, but that’s more of a me problem. Overall, so much wisdom and beauty packed into a single woman’s mind!

[Rudy · Rating 4 out of 5]

“To win, the aggressor must conquer, but the resisters need only survive.”

“I feel, therefore I can be free.”

“When we turn from anger we turn from insight, saying we will accept only the designs already known, deadly and safely familiar.”

4/5


Contact lenses and progress report were my favorite poems.

[Maura · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful, necessary, exquisite and brutal book. This is an active read - it is not an escape but a demand for introspection and a reckoning with yourself and your actions.