year of our lorde

book features

Year of Our (Audre) Lorde: December’s Prologue

Like so many others, I’ve been chirping about the end of 2020, as if the transition from one year to the next will somehow magically suture our open wounds.

Jehan —

Dec 28, 2020

book features

Year of Our (Audre) Lorde: November’s Sister Love

It has felt hard to state how much I’ve been missing my family lately. But Audre Lorde and Pat Parker’s relationship is a testament to the life-affirming power of queer…

Jehan —

Nov 27, 2020

book features

Year of Our (Audre) Lorde: October’s Dead Is Behind Us

To be Black in this world is to be intimate with a kind of living death. It’s an intimacy no one craves, and yet Black people know better than most…

Jehan —

Oct 29, 2020

book features

Year of Our (Audre) Lorde: September’s Afterimages

I am safe nowhere, the Black women in my family of origin and family of choice are safe nowhere. It’s a fact we’ve known but one that feels all the…

Jehan —

Sep 28, 2020

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Year of Our (Audre) Lorde: August’s New Spelling of My Name

In my own myth, New York has been the cornerstone of what shaped me, finally allowing myself to be in my queerness. While the New York I inhabited and the…

Jehan —

Aug 27, 2020

book features

Year of Our (Audre) Lorde: July Is a Black Unicorn

I’m still angry. Breonna Taylor’s murderers still walk free. Let’s be real, they’re probably running around without masks. Audre Lorde’s sense of restlessness and barely concealed fury are evident. But…

Jehan —

Jul 27, 2020

book features

Year of Our (Audre) Lorde: June’s Uses of Anger

We are in the middle of a revolution. My Black woman’s anger is here to signal a necessary sea change. Understand that all of our freedoms are bound up in…

Jehan —

Jun 29, 2020

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Year of Our (Audre) Lorde: May’s Burst of Light

“I am going to write fire until it comes out my ears, my eyes, my noseholes — everywhere. Until it’s every breath I breathe. I’m going to go out like…

Jehan —

May 30, 2020

book features

Year of Our (Audre) Lorde: April’s Arithmetics of Distance

This is dedicated to those who are just trying to make it through every day. It’s been gratifying on an almost cellular level to find that the queen mother Audre…

Jehan —

Apr 29, 2020

book features

Year of Our (Audre) Lorde: March’s Poetry Is Not a Luxury

One of the biggest lessons of Audre Lorde’s work is the strength of coalitional politics. I need a movement that can hold my anger. I need a movement that can…

Jehan —

Mar 26, 2020

book features

Year of Our (Audre) Lorde: February’s Revolutionary Hope

I’m pairing Audre Lorde’s 1984 conversation with James Baldwin and arguably her best-known speech, “The Masters Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” in hopes of exploring how our power…

Jehan —

Feb 17, 2020

literature

Year of Our (Audre) Lorde: January’s Uses of the Erotic

Introducing our new series: Year of Our (Audre) Lorde, a monthly analysis of works by queen mother Audre Lorde as they apply to our current political moment. First, how harnessing…

Jehan —

Jan 22, 2020