day of the Lorde
what is your inner poet trying to incite?
Hey friends,
I’m still relishing in a deep state of loverhood. I am too romantic to only reserve this state of being on the 14th and Pisces season. That in mind, would you come relish with me:
To those of you who are in the Philippines, I am facilitating a gathering called ‘Making the Revolution Delicious’ at Emerging Islands, San Juan, La Union. The gathering is a part of the Eros Retreat, but open to the public. Reach out to Collective Wellness Retreat directly to reserve a spot. See you? :)
What a delight to be a part of Paraluman World’s Not Just For Lovers series! In the series, they explore love more expansively, beyond partnerships and romance. In my audio (with a transcription available in the caption), I shared a love note to the ancestors.
Happy day of Audre Lorde, people. Here’s a photograph of her and Dr. Gloria Joseph, an author, professor, and founder of Sisterhood in Support of Sisters in South Africa:
There’s much to learn about their partnership, as they both seeded and created more than coalitions like the Che Lumumba School for Truth, the Women's Coalition of St. Croix, Sisterhood in Support of Sisters in South Africa, and Doc Loc Apiary, but just imagine the poetry and prose they wrote and weaved together in the name of their love. Audre was Audre because of Gloria.
It is also fruitful to return to a significant portion of Audre’s acceptance speech after being appointed poet laureate of the state of New York in 1991 (more in the documentary A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde).
Lorde says:
What does it mean to be a poet in a country where more money per minute is spent on armaments, when we are supposed to be at peace,
than is spent to feed the starving children…
When the price of one stealth bomber, already outmoded, is more than the entire federal appropriation for all the arts in this country?
What does it mean that a Black, lesbian, feminist, warrior, poet, mother is named the state poet of New York? …
It means that we live in a world full of the most intense contradictions.
And we must find ways to use the best we have—ourselves, our work—to bridge those contradictions; to learn the lessons that those contradictions teach.
And that is the work of the poet within each one of us: to envision what has not yet been and to work with every fiber of who we are to make the reality pursuit of those visions irresistible.
Lorde evocatively delivered this speech nearly 34 years ago, yet her words are no less applicable to our lives today. What are our present-day versions of the ‘most intense contradictions,’ especially in relation to our respective proximities to state power? What are the lessons from our current contradictions?
Lorde consistently reminds me that above everyone else, the poet sees these lessons best, because the poet sees the most intense contradiction there is: what is and what could be.
They help others see said contradiction, and build a tolerance around it through metaphor and imagery and rhyme.
The poets then build bridges between what is and what could be, by singing songs and retelling myths and dreaming possibilities. The poets accompany us to our necessary reckonings.. to what could be.
What is your inner poet trying to incite?
Here’s more of Audre..
