Literary Birthday – 18 February – Audre Lorde

Audre Lorde was born 18 February 1934 and died 17 November 1992.

Nine Quotes

1. …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.
2. Your silence will not protect you.
3. It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognise, accept, and celebrate those differences.
4. Each time you love, love as deeply as if it were forever.
5. I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.
6. Revolution is not a one time event.
7. There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.
8. It is not the destiny of Black America to repeat white America’s mistakes. But we will, if we mistake the trappings of success in a sick society for the signs of a meaningful life.
9. I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.

Audre Lorde was an American author. She was a writer, feminist, womanist, and civil rights activist. Her volumes of poetry include, The First Cities, and Cables to Rage. They are available in The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde.

by Amanda Patterson

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