Throughout her life and career, Lorde utilized her artistic work and public voice as a means to advocate for change within several arenas. As a black lesbian mother in a world dominated by white heterosexual men, Lorde knew how important it was to maintain her identity and to celebrate the differences within not only herself but the world.
In 1976, Lorde used her volume of poetry entitled Coal to not only reach a larger audience (it was the first of Lorde's volumes to be released by a major publisher) but to also express her multi-layered identity. In the poem “Coal,” Lorde celebrates one aspect of her person, her blackness. In the poem, Lorde writes:
Love is word, another kind of open.
As the diamond comes into a knot of flame
I am Black because I come from the earth's inside
Now take my word for jewel in the open light.
Lorde's feelings on identity, difference, and social change soon became defining factors of not only her work, but her life. Lorde knew that if she chose to describe herself (or allowed herself to be described) as only one aspect of her multi-layered identity then she would be denying the other aspects. She was not merely a lesbian, or a mother, or a poet, or a black woman, but instead she was a unique mix of them all. Lorde also believed that the unique mixes within herself, others, and the society are the key forces behind change.
“Imposed silence about any area of our lives is a tool for separation and powerlessness,” Lorde wrote in her book The Cancer Journals, which was published in 1980 and chronicled Lorde's struggle with the disease. It was the first major work of prose from Lorde, who used the book as a way to challenge Western notions of illness and a woman's ability and right to make decisions about her health.
The three-part book, which was derived from Lorde's journal entries and essays written between 1977 and 1979, detailed the author's “experiences with her mastectomy and its aftermath.” The Cancer Journals won the American Library Association Gay Caucus Book of the Year Award in 1981.
In 1988, after twenty years of writing and working towards change, Lorde was described by the Times Literary Supplement, a British publication, as “a mature poet in full command of her craft.” Fellow author Gloria Hull agreed, describing Lorde's work as “basically a traditional kind of modernist free verse--laced with equivocation and . . . allegory.”
Lorde continued to write between the release of The Cancer Journals and her 1992 death in St. Croix. Before losing her 14 year battle with cancer, Lorde, in an African re-naming ceremony, took the name Gamba Adisa, which means “Warrior: She Who Makes Her Meaning Known.”
Through her poetry and life Lorde's meaning truly was known. She refused to be labeled and she worked constantly for progression. Fellow poets applauded their peer for her refusal to be anything but a nuanced being who used her work as means to achieve progression.
In a critique of Lorde's seventh volume of poetry, The Black Unicorn, poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “Refusing to be circumscribed by any simple identity, Audre Lorde writes as a Black woman, a mother, a daughter, a Lesbian, a feminist, a visionary.”
For Lorde, writing was more than a job, it was a responsibility, a responsibility to influence change and people. Through her work, Lorde helped to usher in a new sense of what a person could be. It no longer shocks us to hear about a lesbian mother or a black feminist, but Lorde was breaking down barriers by proudly claiming all of those aspects of her identity. Lorde certainly succeeded in her responsibility to bring about change and to show people that seemingly incongruent roles can melt together to create one powerful identity.
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