Three Books By/About Audre Lorde

Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde, Alexis De Veaux  446 pages

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, Audre Lorde 256 pages

Sister Outsider: Essays & Speeches, Audre Lorde 190 pages

      I can not believe that I lived my entire adult life without ever having read anything by Audre Lorde. Starting with the excellent biography written by Alexis De Veaux, the reader is presented with a woman who was fiery, a poet, an activist, and someone who never compromised who she was, ever. Lorde suffered from the stigma of being an African-American woman, feminist, and out of the closet lesbian well before any of that was in fashion or acceptable, which is part of the reason she did not get the level of attention that she so deserved.  De Veaux does a great job telling the story of a very complex person, by describing her life in separate stages, both the personal struggles and professional achievements of her lengthy career as a poet and activist.

     Zami: A New Spelling of My Name is one of Lorde's best known works, and functions as a biography and personal mythology.  As a reader, I responded to the idea that not everything she was writing about actually happened.  It was refreshing, raw, and well worth my time.

     Sister Outsider is a collection of essays that still resonates now, thirty years later.  In regards to issues of race and equality, she provides essays that are readable, moving, and stirring.  I recommend "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House".