Newspaper Page Text
Southern Voice/February 14, 1991
5
COUNTERCULTURE
Audre Lorde:
The artist must be revolutionary.
by John Zeh
Her son is a Naval intelligence officer and
her reaction to the Persian Gulf crisis is not
known, but Audre Lorde is definitely on
record as opposing the powerful Pentagon.
She trusts her offspring, she said in an
interview with Progressive magazine'
William Steif, but still has “very strong feel
ings against the U.S. military opposing liber
ation movements around the world.”
The“black-lesbian-feminist-warrior-poet-
mother,” as she describes herself, was bom of
parents from Barbados and Grenada. She
lives in St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands in
a "pleasant" house near the sea.
Lorde uses a lower case "a" to write about
the U.S., she explained, “because I'm angry
about the pretenses of america. It's on the
wrong side of every liberation struggle on
earth.”
Steifs interview preceded the Persian Gulf
conflict, which is highlighted on the issue's
cover to highlight two other articles.
Lorde, 56, is the subject of a major work-
in-progress by prominent Washington film
maker Michelle Parkerson, who previewed a
video version on World AIDS Day at Astrea
Gallery in Washington, D.C.
Lorde’s writings were singled out by
Senator Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) as obscene,
and unworthy of funding by the National
Endowment for the Arts, the The
Progressive interview notes.
“I know my work is not obscene,” she
counters.
“On the other hand, he's right in a way: I do
mean his downfall. His ideas are the height of
obscenity, crushing not only the United States
but most of the world today, putting power
and profits above human needs.”
Lorde is author of a dozen books, teacher,
lecturer, survivor of three bouts with cancer,
and Steifs “exemplar of courage, exponent of
unvarnished truth.”
In 1979-80, she questioned why so few
NEA grants went to people of color, while
“the white artistic community was resound
ingly silent.”
The NEA's failure to support radical
change will end in its demise, she warned.
“The artist must be revolutionary. The artist
is one of the few who knows how much there
is to lose.”
Lorde's name, and her life, wrote Gay
Community News reviewer Cheryl Clarke,
“claim our attention, our intellectual spon
taneity and our emotional need to connect
with her experience, authority, and vulnera
bility.”
To overcome rampant racism, sexism, and
homophobia that “have become more articu
lated in the last ten year,” Lorde urges people
to “work in the service of what we believe.”
Presidents Reagan and Bush “have legit
imized” these -ism ills, Lorde says, resulting
in a “sense of doom” that requires people to
know that no one is untouched by U.S. or
world problems and to speak up to perpetra
tors of injustice.
Lorde credits her teachers at New York
City's Hunter High School for encouraging
her, except for one mentor who censored her
love sonnet from the school's magazine
Lorde edited in 1947. An early rebel/free
lancer, she submitted the banned opus to
Seventeen magazine, and was paid for its
publication.
Her books include Cables to Rage (1970),
From a Land Where Other People Live
(1973), Coal (1976), The Black Unicorn
(1978), Zami (1980), Sister Outsider (1984),
and Our Dead Behind Us (1986). A Burst of
Light: Living With Cancer, published by
Ithaca, New York's Firebrand Books, in 1988,
documents the poet's tenacious struggle to
save her own life by doing her work.
“Poetry,” Lorde told Steif, “is the conflict
in the lives we lead.” It's an art that “intensi
fies ourselves, alters and underlines our feel
ings.”
“It is most subversive because it is in the
Lorde: Jesse Helms is right in a way.
I do mean his downfall.
business of encouraging change.”
That's probably one reason she invited
Parkerson to join recent performance tours.
The award-winning film/video producer, her
self a poet, uses media “as vehicles for social
changes.” Her film about Lorde is scheduled
for release in August.
Reading About Our Histories
A short list of titles that offer insight and perspective
African-American Gay and Lesbian
History/Literature
•Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde—A
collection by one of the world's most powerful and thought-
provoking writers. Lorde has spent the last 20 years telling
the stories of Black lesbian feminists from her unique and
honest perspective. The book spans ten years and covers sub
jects such as Lorde's children, her family and the feminist
movement. (Crossing Press, 1984)
•Other Countries: Black Gay Voices by Other Countries
Writing Collective—The first volume to be published by this
New York based group of Black gay men. Poetry, essays and
plays that have been called both "inspiring" and "beautiful"
by critics. (Other Countries, 1988)
•In the Life: A Black Gay Anthology by Joseph Beam, ed.
—More than 30 essays poems and stories about what it
means to be a Black gay man. (Alyson Publications, 1986)
•Gay and Lesbian Poetry in Our Time: An Anthology by
Carl Morse and Joan Larkin, eds—This collection is the first
of its kind to include so many works by lesbians and gay men
of color. June Jordan, Kate Rushin and Assotto Saint are
among the many Black men and women whose works are
featured. A multicultural treasure. (St. Martins Press, 1988)
•Also.Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology by Barbara
Smith, ed. (Kitchen Table-Women of Color Press, 1983);
Conditions: Poems by Essex Hemphill (Be Bop Books,
1986); A Burst of Light: Essays by Audre Lorde (Firebrand
Books, 1988); The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde
(Spinsters/Aunt Lute Press, 1980); Zami: A New Spelling of
My Name by Audre Lorde (Persephone Press, 1982); Living
as a Lesbian by Cheryl Clarke (Firebrand Books, 1986).
African-American History
•Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America by
Lerone Bennett—The story of Blacks who arrived before the
Puritans, how they came to North America and what hap
pened to them when they got here. This and other Black firsts
by the world's most widely read Black American author.
(Johnson Publishing Co., 1987)
•Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954
1965 by Juan Williams—The award winning television docu
mentary is based on this important book about 11 of the most
explosive years in this country's history. (Penguin, 1988)
•The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X—"The
absorbing personal story of a man who rose from hoodlum,
thief, dope peddler and pimp to become the most dynamic
leader of the Black revoloution.. .the agony of this brilliant
Negro's self-creation is the agony of an entire people in their
search for identity," said the New Yoric Review of Books.
(Ballantine Books, 1973)
•Women Culture and Politics by Angela V. Davis—A book
by one of the most dynamic political/social leaders of our
time. A major force behind die Black Revolution in the '60s,
she was once on the FBI's top ten wanted list. This book
tracks the roles of Black women culturally and politically in
this country. (Random House, 1989)
•Other Titles: From Slavery to Freedom: A History of
American Negroes by John H. Franklin (Knopf, 1967); The
Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum
South by John W. Blassingame (Oxford University Press,
1979); TYavail and THumph: Black Life and Culture in
the South Since the Civil War by Arnold H. Taylor
(Greenwood Press, 1976); The Black Family in Slavery and
Freedom, 1750-1925 by Herbert G. Gutman (Vintage Books,
1977); Long Memory: The Black Experience in America
by Mary Berry (Oxford University Press, 1982); Blood in
My Eye by George Jackson (Random House, 1972).
A special thanks to: The Department of African-American
Studies at Emory University and the Special Collections
Department of the Atlanta-Fulton County Public Library for
their contributions to this article. — Patrick Bell
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