"Advocating the mere tolerance of difference between women is the grossest reformism. It is a total denial of the creative function of difference in our lives. Difference must be not merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic."
Audre Lorde (1934-1992), African American poet, autobiographer, and lesbian feminist. Sister Outsider, ch. 11 (1984).
From comments made on September 29, 1979, at the Second Sex Conference in New York City. |
"... it is through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are—until the poem—nameless and formless, about to be birthed, but already felt. That distillation of experience from which true poetry springs births thought as dreams birth concept, as feeling births idea, as knowledge births (precedes) understanding."
Audre Lorde (1934-1992), African American poet, autobiographer, and lesbian feminist. Sister Outsider, ch. 3 (1984).
From "Poetry is Not a Luxury," an essay first published in Chrysalis, number 3 (1977). |
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