Remembering Audre Lorde: February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the death of Black Feminist Lesbian Mother Warrior Poet Audre Lorde. When Paula Cooey introduced me to her writings in 1985, I remember being shocked that I could be so persuaded and so moved by a lesbian non-Christian, given that I was so entrenched in a kind of Christianity that insisted such people were demonic. Cooey gave me Lorde in small doses and one day told me her entire identity. By then I could only be fully conflicted because I had come to love her and her insight on the world, her black woman self so much my auntie or sister, so kin to me. I suppose I have Paula and Audre and Alice (Walker) to thank for my walk toward at-the-root inclusivity and hospitality infused Christianity. It took some years, some experiences, some loving, some losing to get here.... And the journey continues. 

I learned of her death, as it turns out, 4 days after she had died (I found the journel in which I wrote this poem below on the spot and it's dated November 21, 1992). The day I heard Audre Lorde died, I was in a Womanist session at the Academy of American Religion. Mother Katie G. Cannon, Womanist ethicist and fierce-warrior, was speaking and someone walked onto the stage and whispered the news in her ear. She paused and gathered herself and then announced it to those of us gathered.

We all gasped and sighed in a chorus that dissolved into sobs. I was sitting between Womanist religious scholars sociologist Cheryl Townsend Gilkes and theologian Cheryl Kirk-Duggan and wrote a poem on the spot that Cheryl Townsend Gilkes made me get up and read. I was shaking from fear and grief. Sister Outsider essays had changed my life when I was in undergraduate with Paula Cooey at Trinity University. Thandeka and Summer Cree both made their way to me and just stared at me before they in turn hugged me so long and tight for the offering. I fell in love with Thandeka that day, and later wrote a poem to honor her. I wrote like mad for three days straight. It was the gift our Elder/Ancestor gave me as she left this plane. I honor her today as I remember. Thanks, Aishah Shahidah Simmons, for reminding me.

ON HEARING AUDRE LORDE DIED

She is dead
and I did not know her
but I did

I knew her in my body
hot with the writhing

of power welling up
and flowing down my legs
to nourish the earth
and all my lovers.

She taught me to love the power,
embrace the pain--
be in charge.

I did not know her
but I did

I knew her in my heart
torn with the ambiguities
of living between, outside
the known world,
diving deep and walking away
from my heart to claim
the cosmos
as my own--

to love men and women,
separate, together, whenever
without backing down
from the power.

I did not know her
but I knew her well.

(Farewell, dear Audre)
© Valerie Bridgeman

November 21, 1992
1:40 pm