People who Inspire: Audre Lorde "Sister Outsider"

            Audre Lorde is a theorist and poet who I keep running into.  I love her work because it is so artistically rich.  Also I  love how she is both an artist and theorist.  Recently I was reading “Sister/Outsider” who was one of the leading Feminist/Queer Theorist and artists who helped affect modern outlooks today.  Her essay, Poetry is not a Luxury completely floored me to the point of tears. Ever since I was a child art has been the uniting force to keep my feet firmly on the ground despite the trauma I have through.

            There is a misconception that Literary Theory has no purpose is in the form and technique of both poetry and literature but that is not the case.  Lorde has taught me about the symbiotic relationship of both.

The knowledge of fear can help make us free.

for the embattled there is no place

that cannot be 

home nor is.

            As women we are taught to hide those dreams.  To be realistic and focus on 401k’s and paying off our student loans before we have to take them out for our own children.  There isn’t a place for art in this world to flourish within our souls.  Even in academia where we are supposed to be focused on art we are bogged down by trainings and grades.

“That distillation of experience from which true poetry springs births thought as dream births concept, as feeling births idea, as knowledge births (precedes) understanding.”  As I get older my dreams have changed.  I have faced life and death, birthed humans, survived abuse, survived loss, and got ducks.  It is through these changes for good and bad that art has helped me survive.  That my writing has become visceral and real.  My dreams are more pure and personal.  It is through this art that my understanding of my place in the universe has come.  My art has brought me new dreams and most importantly peace.  Nothing scares me any longer.  I have my voice and I know who I am in position to this world.  

“As women we must embrace this within ourselves.  All of us must find our own art.  What is the poetry of your soul?  Each of us must find time to dream, to write, to express, and to live our poetry.  For each of us as women, there is a dark place within, where hidden and growing our true spirit rises, “beautiful/ and tough as chestnut/ stanchions against (y) our nightmare of weakness/” ** and of impotence."

         Poetry has struggled to find wide spread appeal in our generation and a lot of the reason for this is that people don’t see the point any more.  In the 18^th and 19^th centuries for example poetry was our smart phones.  It is where people came to express emotion through the art.  Sensuality, love, faith, nature, etc were found between the pages of the greatest artists of their day.  Now we must make art relevant in our technological world.   People need to understand, poetry is not an option but rather a freedom of expression that cannot be found on Netflix.

Source:  Lorde, Audre (2012-01-04). Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Crossing Press Feminist Series)