Audre Lorde

In the readings of Lorde as a teacher, she has really taken all aspects into account to be the best listener, mentour, friend, and educator she can be to her students. Becoming a teacher was much more to Lorde than sitting down with her kids and using the written curriculum. She believed in human connection and touch. She focuses on the emotional aspect of life and helps us in understanding ourselves as better individuals and as a whole. In her article, “Poet as Teacher- Human as Poet- Teacher as Human,” Lorde describes the different activities she would do with her students depending on the mood of the day. She says, “The exercise I choose for a rainy day with the same group is different from that which I’d have chosen had the day been bright, or the day after a police slaughter of a Black child” (182). This quote explains how Lorde really embraces human connection and understands the necessary things that need to be done on any specific day to make her students feel better and more connected with the outside world as long as with each other. She also helps them create and produce their own poetry by allowing them to go on the inside and teach them about “feeling herself or himself” (183). This relates back to Zami and how Lorde always believed in the inner and outer touch and that it helped her really know how to feel and express those feelings with others. This can help the children understand themselves more and choose which feelings they wish to share make others understand as well.

Lorde also uses her own personal journals and notes to assist her in her ways of teaching. This is explained in “I Teach Myself in Outline, Notes, Journals, Syllabi & an Excerpt from Deotha.” She is always striving to help her students relate to their own everyday lives and wants to incorporate their experiences as well. One of her students from Hunter College said this about Lorde, “She made you feel, when you were talking to her, that there was no place she’d rather be” (4). Her students appreciate her attentiveness and the insight she brought to the class. She allowed and encouraged them to share their thoughts and opinions and to express their own feelings. Teaching is a lifetime duty, we teach ourselves and others new things from everything we do. It says, “Lorde’s classroom was a place of open wounds, where vulnerability was visible and the learning process entailed acts of mutual care as well as expressions of tension” (7). This quote describes how emotion plays a big role in Lorde’s life and her ways of teaching. Intimacy and feeling fill her classroom atmosphere, which creates this connectedness for her and her students.   

In the poem, “The Classroom,” using her own experience, Lorde talks about the classroom environment that she had to live in when she was a child. She reminds us about the bad memories she had, but also relating back to how she felt. She had a sense of “loneliness” bottled up inside her. She didn’t feel as though she fit in with the children around her or impressed her teachers. This loneliness also came from the distance between each other and different cultures. It says, “We are/ Enclosed by the walls between us/ by the chemistry of the dead/ spaces we share” Lorde has always believed in the art of touch and how it connects us with our real feelings and thoughts. She incorporates this sense of intimacy in her own classrooms to allow her students to express their true self and understand more about one another through shared and differed experiences. She uses the adjectives “naive and plastic/ safe and unspeakable” These words define how people act immature, fake, and sheltered, too afraid to be the first one to cross the start line and be the difference. Lorde uses her sense of emotion and motivation for change through her teaching methods and hopes her students will feel comfortable sharing the uncomfortable with her, each other, and eventually the world.  

Discussion Questions:

1. What effects of Lorde’s own personal experience in school influenced her decision to become a teacher and the way she teaches?
2. Why do you think Lorde incorporates the importance of touch even in her teaching? Why does she revolve life around intimacy and emotion?

1. Read Lorde’s teaching materials (links on syllabus).
2. Kara and Gabby will post blogs on these materials by 4 pm on Monday, April 6. Everyone else, please read their blogs and leave a comment by 4 pm on Wednesday, April 8. 
3. On Friday, April 10 we will attempt to have a virtual conversation of Lorde’s teaching materials during our regularly-scheduled class time (12:40-1:30). We will meet using WebEx and this link. Prior to our session, please click that link and download the free WebEx platform that you’ll need to access our virtual discussion. It would be great if you could come prepared with thoughts and questions related to Lorde’s teaching materials. For those of you who are unable to attend, we will miss you! This will not count as an absence. I may try and record our class meeting and send it to those who can’t attend. 
   1. One note on virtual meetings: if possible, please use headphones! They help block out external noise. You might also want to mute yourself when you aren’t speaking. 

Happy Thursday and congratulations on (almost) making it through your first week of surprise online classes! 

The third and final Zami lecture is ready to go. I tried to make it shorter and failed; instead, it grew longer (39:12).  

Once you have listened to the lecture, please post a comment in response to one of the following discussion questions by 4 pm on Friday, April 3. As always, please make sure to incorporate and analyze a quote from the reading. Comments can be posted directly on this blog post.

Discussion questions – choose one!

• (From lecture #2) How might we use Lorde’s working-class life (having to work long hours at minimum wage jobs and even sell her blood to pay rent, eat, and survive) to think about her work?
• How does Zami depict both the exciting, creative, and imaginative possibilities of living an experimental life, as well as the risks, dangers, and/or repercussions?  
• Zami concludes with a number of striking images: Afreke’s memory as an “emotional tattoo” (253), Lorde’s life as “a bridge and field of women” (255), the desire to be with women as a drive emerging from “the mother’s blood” (256). Choose one image (from these or another you liked) and describe its significance in terms of an overarching theme or question of the book. 
• With reference to some specifics from Zami, what is the value of reading about other people’s lives? Why do we do this? 

P.S… Are you trapped at home but longing to learn more about New York City’s gay, lesbian, and queer history? Check out (and maybe take a virtual tour of) the Lesbian Herstory Archives and explore Jack Gieseking’s interactive map of “An Everyday Queer New York.”

Happy Tuesday! I hope this week finds you safe, healthy, and connected to your friends, family, and loved ones despite the isolation of social distancing. 

You all did such a great job with the discussion questions for Zami lecture #1! If you haven’t had a chance to read through your classmates’ comments, I highly recommend it. You all had fantastic insights into Lorde’s experiences at school (Keira, Emily, Marian, Cody, Kara, Katie, Kelly, Mikey, Gabby), her friendships with The Branded (Sam), her increasing racial consciousness (Savannah, Alaina), the politics of silence (Kianna, Claudia), and her use of erotic language (Megan, Gabriele, Alice). 

Zami lecture #2 (81-142) is ready to go! Please make sure you listen and take notes. 

Instead of discussion questions for this lecture, I ask that you do this additional short reading from Vice on “The History of Lesbian Bars,” which will be a major theme in the final lecture. Optionally, if you have time, there is a 25 minute video embedded in that article, “Searching for the Last Lesbian Bars in America.” In the final lecture, we’ll talk about the importance of bars as political spaces for people in marginalized groups and subcultures to form networks and communities.   

To summarize: no discussion questions for this lecture. Read about lesbian bars instead. Lecture #3 with discussion questions will be posted on Thursday and comments will be due by 4 pm on Friday.

Hi all! I hope you are staying safe and healthy. Zami lecture one is ready to go! It’s 36 minutes and covers material up through page 80 (I’ll try and make the next lectures quite a bit shorter). Please let me know if you have any difficulties listening to the audio recording.

Once you have listened to the lecture, please post a comment in response to one of the following discussion questions by 4 pm on Monday, March 30. As always, please make sure to incorporate and analyze a quote from the reading. Comments can be posted directly on this blog post.

I’ll post Zami lecture #2 sometime on Tuesday, April 1 and you will have until 4 pm on Wednesday, April 2 to leave a comment. I also promise that the future weeks won’t be as time-intensive… trying to make up for lost time and ground!

PS… don’t forget to enter the #ENG430 Twitter competition. Extra credit to anyone who posts a picture of their furry friend reading something by Audre Lorde.

Discussion Questions – choose one!

• How would you describe Lorde’s experiences in school — either as a child or in high school?
• What ideas or questions were raised by Lorde’s use of sensual and erotic language (especially in her descriptions of exploring her mother’s body, interacting with her first playmate Toni, or cooking souse with her mother)? 
• Leave a comment addressing one of the other themes from the lecture: the politics of silence, powerful men taking advantage of young girls, or Lorde’s increasing racial consciousness.

In the book, chapter 12, a subject is brought up by Lorde that (I feel) hasn’t truly been delved into by Lorde until now. The question of, what is my identity? Within the small chapter a lot of anger, tension and angst are packed in. Lorde is trying to within her means find out who she is, what makes her Audre. As already seen in the book Lorde feels isolated and outsider in her own family. She has no one age-wise that she is close to and her mom places her very strict West Indian expectations of who she should be on her shoulders. Yet, Lorde finds that high school seems to be the place where all of this can fall away. “For four years, Hunter High School was a lifeline. No matter what it was in reality, I got something there I needed.” (82) High school was where her ideas were met with understanding and interest, not scorn. Where she could converse with women her own age and bounce ideas off of them. She was able to be a young woman and express herself in ways that she hadn’t been able to before. This is where her creativity in poetry really bloomed, where it was accepted and encouraged and “not a secret and rebellious vice.” (82)

What truly was key about this chapter was Lorde’s view on her home life. She claims that by her sophomore year “I was in open battle on every other front in my life, except school.”(82) She was waging war against expectation and her true wants. She likens the battle as a “West Indian version of the Second World War”(82) This really speaks to how it really felt to be so against familial values and expectations in a country that promoted opportunity and progress. It was a war of hereditary culture versus modernity/progress. I pose it like this because Lorde towards the end of the chapter confides that she wants to see the world and go to college but her mom wants her to stay. The college would be a modern concept to a woman that so stridently tries to keep her family in the ways of Grenada. Linda never makes it past the seventh grade in her education and so college is something she deems as not worthwhile for her children. She wants her kids to be like her a good West Indian wife. Lorde can see that she herself will never make herself a good West Indian woman or wife in her mother’s eyes. She is deemed “fat” and “not well-behaved” (84). She was the antithesis of what her mother wants her to be . 

Within this turmoil, Lorde makes a mistake or transgression. She confides to her guidance counselor her trouble at home and she wants. This, in turn, is told to her mother which makes Linda cry for the third time. Remember that Lorde sees her mom as powerful except when she cries. She has now made her move against this woman. Lorde never means to hurt Linda’s feelings or make her feel worthless in the eyes of a white woman. She just sees what her family is failing to see. The opportunities and adventures that the United States holds in store for anyone wishing to find them. Lorde sees that her family is trying to cling to the ideals and ways of Grenada all because her mother can’t let go and accept that this is now home and learn to embrace it. Lorde “ached for something I could not name.” (85).

1. How do you as reader’s see this chapter as a description of Lorde trying to find her self?
2. What do you think Lorde is aching for or seeking within this chapter?

Lorde, Audre. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. New York, Crossing Press, 1982.

In this section of Zami A New Spelling of My Name, we see Lorde go through a lot of painful, even traumatic events. From the tumultuous relationship she experiences with Gennie, to moving out of her parents’ home at 17, to the abortion, she has this section seems to be a period of hardships for her. However, never does Lorde talk about this period as if she is drowning in sorrow; she carries on as she always has. She appears to take these hardships as places to not wallow in, but to continue living and searching for those erotic yeses. In that way I believe that pain is not only a universal experience, but a necessary one. These experiences that Lorde has experienced did bring her pain and sorrow at the time, but they are all experiences in human life, regardless of emotions involved, that can be learned from. 

Starting with Lorde’s relationship with Gennie as that seems to be the catalyst for this section. Lorde describes her as the “first person in my life that I was ever conscious of loving. She was my first true friend” (87). The two girls live and love each other as fully as they can. It is an innocent relationship that is derailed by Gennie’s home life and mental health. Lorde does her best to help Gennie, but ultimately Gennie’s decision to commit suicide comes to fruition. The depth of their intimacy is expressed throughout this entire section of narrative, but it can be perfectly summed up in Lorde’s thoughts as Gennie is in the hospital, “Gennie Gennie Gennie I never saw you asleep before. You look just like you awake except for your eyes are closed. Your brows still bend in the middle like you frowning” (99). Before that she thinks of all the things she and Gennie never did, and now never would. One of those things was to “let our bodies touch and tell the passions that we felt” (97). Lorde clearly loved Gennie and that love was felt even more so with the pain of Gennie’s death. With Gennie’s death Lorde feels even more isolated in her parents’ home which leads to her moving out after graduation.

When Lorde moves out she finds the solitude she was craving from her parents’ home, however she quickly finds out that being on your own is not as easy as she thought. She struggles to pay her rent, that struggle is exasperated when she becomes pregnant. She decides to have an abortion, and here is where pain reappears. Only this time it is physical pain rather than emotional pain. As the cramps begin she states that, “I dared myself to feel any regrets” (111). This quote as well as the remainder of the section shows Lorde working through those cramps, even attempting to go to work. She spends a long time in this physical pain, but it does not slow her down. 

What is the most intriguing kernel of this is Lorde’s near nonchalance about her pain. She does not describe her hopelessness about her prospects, instead she narrates these traumatic experiences as if it was any other topic. I have to think that perhaps at the time, she felt more despair. Inserting my perspective into her narrative, I believe that I would feel deep despair. As Lorde argues that anger is a useful human emotion, then I would argue that pain is too. Pain, or being in a low place, can allow us to grow. Knowing that even at your lowest, you can always get back up to those erotic joys. There is the saying that it is in the valleys that we grow so in that way I believe that Lorde’s pain here will be a seed for later growth. 

1. How do you see the function of pain not only in this novel, but also in everyday life? Can pain be a good thing? Something that makes us human? 
2.  Which do you believe was the most painful for Lorde: the emotional pain of Gennie’s suicide or the physical pain of her abortion? Which one provided the most growth for her? 

Lorde, Audre. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. New York, Crossing Press, 1982.

Lorde captures the essence of home in the first few chapters of “Zami: A New Spelling of My Name”. There are a multitude of themes and hidden gems covered in this book. Lorde’s mother and her correlation to home were one of the most consistent themes thus far, and all of the minor symbols such as fruit, cultural differences and overall connection helped tie in and support this theme. For this blogpost, we’ll focus on Linda, Lorde’s mother, and how she stays rooted to home… as well as some research about limes and their hidden meaning. 

 As Lorde skips around in Zami, it seems as though home – and the idea of home – is a way of grounding. The text is a little flighty but it’s crafted with intention. The memories feel almost dream-like which tie in to Linda’s longing for Grenada. She incorporates sprinkles and disperses of scents and memories throughout her writing as a way to bring us back to the text, to the now, wherever and whenever that is. I was having a hard time decoding the book and figuring out the direction for where this text is going to go. It felt like Lorde was going on tangents at times but each paragraph serves a purpose, and after re-reading, it felt like she was using scents, tastes and connections to Grenada to emphasize home and the power of our roots (and, for the purpose of this blogpost, bringing empowerment to Linda). 

Lorde makes it very clear that her mother is strong and has found empowerment through home by addressing this in the first paragraph: “When I visited Grenada I saw the root of my mother’s powers walking through the streets” (9). When using the word root, the first thing that pops into my head is the idea of a tree. In this case, she is rooted to Grenada and her “family tree” is there. The essence of home and Linda have become a powerful duo and it’s something very clear to Lorde. “Little secret sparks of it were kept alive for years by my mother’s search for tropical fruits “under the bridge,” and her burning of kerosene lamps, by her treadle-machine and her fried bananas and her love of fish and the sea. Trapped. There was so little she really knew about the stranger’s country” (10). This quote holds a lot of importance in the way Lorde describes her mother. As readers, we quickly learn how her mother lived and  what it was that kept her pushing through. This idea of “returning home” and sticking to her roots was what allowed her to persevere through difficult times, such as working twelve hours a day or finding the right way to protect her children from racism (i.e.- the lie regarding people spitting on her children). Home was what kept Linda strong. It was a way for her to be proud of her identity: “she knew how to make virtues out of necessities” and “she knew about food” and how songs were made about every matter back in Grenada (11). She was able to find peace while in Harlem – usually by water – and would reminisce and share stories with Lorde about home: “Whenever we were close to water, my mother grew quiet and soft and absent-minded. Then she would tell us wonderful stories about Noel’s Hill in Grenville, Grenada, which overlooked the Caribbean” (13). This demonstrates the idea of home bringing Linda back to herself, and how even the idea of home or every-day occurrences that she associated with home would help center her and bring her back to her essence. 

   It’s clear that the idea of home is a strong part of Linda’s identity and a way for her to remember her worth as a woman. Home is a constant reminder for her to continue. To tie in the correlation of limes and Linda, I looked up their symbolism. I was reluctant because there doesn’t have to be symbolism behind something that just “is” (I looked it up anyway). A Google search supported the fact that limes are in fact a signature scent of Grenada and the fragrance of limes can be smelled from hundreds of yards away. With that being said, it makes sense as to why Lorde would bring up limes and their scent a few times, however it’s scattered throughout the text, and I was unsure as to why due to its distraction. 

Lime trees are a symbol for love, fidelity and justice. These three words sum up how Lorde speaks of her mother and her relationship with Grenada. Fidelity, according to the dictionary, is defined as “faithfulness to a person, cause, or belief, demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support”. It is also defined as the “sexual faithfulness to a spouse or partner” (we’ll disregard that part for now) and “the degree of exactness with which something is copied or reproduced” (New Oxford American Dictionary). It is clear that Linda is full of love when speaking of home. She feels it and applies it to her everyday life and to her self in order to make peace with not returning home. Linda applies her knowledge and identity from Grenada to her everyday life because of her inability to return home, therefore eluding to the idea of justice. And then there’s that idea of fidelity. After reading the definition and applying it to Zami, it’s clear that the limes served even more of a purpose than coincidence and fact in the text. Limes were mentioned several times in Zami so far, and in doing so, it serves as a reminder for the loyalty and support of home and how much it means to Linda. 

“It was so often her approach to the world; to change reality. If you can’t change reality, change your perceptions of it” (18). So overall, the tone of Zami so far feels distant and grounded at the same time. Our minds are somewhere else – in Grenada, where Linda’s mind is at – yet we are continuously brought back to Harlem and Lorde’s recollection and attribute to Linda’s strength as a woman in her life. The nostalgia in Zami is powerful and has made this feel like a twist on perception and reality. I’m looking forward to facilitating the first part of Zami, and I’m even more excited to see where the book will bring us. Thank you for reading all the way through!

QUESTION 1: 

 A common theme that we’ve been discussing in class relates to feminine empowerment, rising up and using our voices. Lorde mentions how her father felt about home: “But there was no call for this knowledge now; and her husband Byron did not like to talk about home because it made him sad, and weakened his resolve to make a kingdom for himself in this new world” (12). Do you think that home helped keep Linda true to her identity, or do you feel that it held her back in some ways? Do you think their coping  mechanisms with missing a place is due to their gender differences and the roles they play at home/in Grenada/in the city? 

QUESTION 2:

The way she is able to tie in the relationship her mother had with Grenada and what the place means to her has reflected through her writing method: she goes on a few tangents and memories are what ground and center her back to the main story or theme of home. Was there other imagery that caught your eye and caused you to do further research (think scents, food symbolism, music, cultural differences, etc.)? 


Works Cited:

Lorde, Audre. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. New York, Crossing Press, 1982.
New Oxford American Dictionary (website).

Audre Lorde introduces a new genre with “Zami: A New Spelling of My Name” by using her gift as a story teller to bring together the juxtaposing genres: biography and mythology. Mythology, the study of myths, stems from ancient Greek etymology and as provided by the Myriam Webster dictionary, “earlier mythos, mythus, borrowed from Greek mŷthos “utterance, speech, discourse, tale, narrative, fiction, legend,” of obscure origin” (MWD). Lorde has defined herself as a multi-dimensional artist (warrior, poet, lesbian, feminist, etc.) and asserts this by overlaying mythological elements to the reality of her life. We see this in the way she describes women more so than anything else, and the power she credits to them merits further exploration.

In exploring the concept of “biomythology” I found Clarissa Pinkola Estés book “Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype” as a great source to unpack the subject. Estés spends an entire book breaking down the ways the female psyche has evolved over time and where the deeper meanings of female myths lead us. As she describes the journey, “my life and work as a Jungian analyst and cantadora, storyteller, have taught me that women’s flagging vitality can be restored by extensive “psychic-archeological” digs into the ruins of the female underworld. By these methods we are able to recover the ways of the natural instinctive psyche, and through the personification in the Wild Woman archetype we are able to discern the ways and means of woman’s deepest nature” (Estés, 3). As Estés notes, there is a connection between women, storytelling and psyche that seem to blend together as a lifeforce all its own. Lorde heavily credits the powerful female forces that played a hand in her development and as she writes, “it is the images of women, kind and cruel that lead me home” (Lorde, 3). It is in these images of women, and the personification of them, that I found both women working magic.

Lorde uses the example of her mother as source of unique strength and protection, we could also see her as shamanic. As Lorde describes her, “she knew about mixing oils for bruises and rashes, and about disposing of all toenail clippings and hair from the comb. About burning candles before All Souls Day to keep the soucoyants away, lest they suck the blood of her babies” (Lorde, 10). Her mother exhibits behavior we would associate with a witch or sorceress, such as potion-making and keeping monsters at bay. These are all strong and important manifestations of power for Lorde. There is healing and protection provided by her mother, no matter how sensationalized. Estés makes a similar declaration for her Wild Woman archetype as she writes, “the Wild Woman carries the bundles for healing; she carries everything a woman needs to be and know. She carries the medicine for all things. She carries stories and dreams and words and songs and signs and symbols. She is both vehicle and destination” (Estés, 12). The sentiment that the Wild Woman, which inhabits all women, carries a special and healing kind of energy, one that is pervasive in “Zami.” Lorde creates a character out of Linda beyond that of a working immigrant mother, which she could have easily done, and draws on her mother’s deep worldly knowledge. Linda carries the bundles of healing for her children and tries to pass them along to them. As Lorde writes, “she told us about plants that healed and about plants that drove you crazy, and none of it made much sense to us children because we had never seen any of them” (Lorde, 13). Her mother carries a torch of female intuition and knowledge that transcends time and place.

Audre Lorde could have just as easily wrote her biography as such, or even as a memoir, but instead chose to weave stories and elevate the evolution of her life. As Clarissa Pinkola Estés stated, “stories enable us to understand the need for and the ways to raise a submerged archetype” (Estés, 16). Lorde uses her own personal stories to raise a submerged archetype of which she had been molded by. Her hybridization of biography and mythology seems entirely necessary to tell the story of someone so deep and complex. Her conclusion in the prologue speaks to this as she writes, “woman forever. My body, a living representation of other life older longer wiser… Made in earth.” (Lorde, 7). In conclusion, Lorde, the Wild Woman, could not be explained in one genre and so she ingeniously created her own to share her story.

Discussion Questions:

1. What examples of Lorde sensationalizing something mundane stood out most to you?
2. How did Lorde’s portrayal of her mother change or complicate the way you viewed her childhood?

Work cited

Lorde, Audre. Zami: a New Spelling of My Name: a Biomythography. Crossing Press, 1982.

Estés, Clarissa Pinkola. Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992.

“Dictionary by Merriam-Webster: America’s Most-Trusted Online Dictionary.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/.

Hello! I’m Marian and I considered the most recent reading from the Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals to be a beautiful example of sisterhood and the power of human connection and the influence it has in the worst of times. Lorde seems to use sensory imagery to invoke the feelings she experienced whilst in the hospital between biopsies and the mastectomy. Lorde says, “The gong in my brain of “malignant,” “malignant,” and the icy sensations of that frigid room, cut through the remnants of anesthesia like a firehouse trained on my brain” (27). In this Lorde is describing the room but also her own feelings of the coldness she now feels inside herself. Lorde is at this point just coming out from being under and is forced to realize her situation, she has cancer and due to her lack of knowledge of any other black, lesbian, feminist poets ever having battled cancer, she felt very alone as she states, “This is it Audre. You’re on your own” (29). These feelings are in part due to lack of knowing anyone else that has ever undergone circumstances such as her own as well as the room she was in, the room seems to exude sadness, hopelessness, isolation and simple icy feeling that’s unkind to inhabitants of the room. Lorde’s use of the cold to present her feelings of loneliness are quite prevalent as she continues to present the coldness of the room as a discomfort until her lover and friends arrive. At that point she begins to present the feeling of warmth.  

As Lorde’s friends arrive and the feeling of warmth is presented, Lorde also expresses a feeling of connected womanhood. Lorde equates company and support with warmth and loneliness with the cold so as more of her friends arrive and place spare blankets and their own personal coats on her bed, her loneliness seems to dissipate as well as the cold of the room, overall she simply no longer feels alone and that she must face this situation alone. Lorde has established a support group through friends and her own lover that beats her cancer, though the pain of her cancer is still prevalent, her loneliness is not. Lordes use of sensory imagery to convey this distinct change in environment and feelings is quite beautiful and I think fully conveys her true feelings about having cancer and the support network she had to help get through it. Lorde’s use of literary devices truly helps to add her own extra special personal touch to the work that for some authors it can be difficult to do, even when the work is about their own life. Lorde conveys her loneliness and coldness inside and how through friends it is transformed into a warmth and hope that nothing, not even cancer could try to extinguish. Though they do not experience all the same aspects of the cancer as her, they still are doing what they can to be there for her.  

Work Cited:  

Lorde, Audre. The Cancer Journals. Aunt Lute Books. 1980.