Presence, Prophecy and Reproduction: (Y)our Words Will Be (T)here

“So Who’s Giving Guarantees?: An Interview with Audre Lorde, Anita Cornwell,
“Showing Our True Colors”, Audre Lorde, 1990
“What is At Stake in Lesbian and Gay Publishing Today” , Audre Lorde, 1990
“Of Generators and Survival—Hugo Letter”, Audre Lorde, 1990
Selected Poems (in Callaloo), Audre Lorde, 1991
“Above the Wind: An Interview with Audre Lorde”, Charles H. Rowell, 1991
Healing Narratives: Women Writers Curing Cultural Dis-ease , Gay Wilentz, 2000
“Cruel Enough to Stop the Blood” Global Feminisms and the U.S. Body Politic, Or: “They Done Taken My Blues and Gone”, Karla Holloway, 2006

mama audre
how did you no
facing gale
force consent

to plant letters
like collard seeds
who new how
to ride wind
dispersing into
breath
?

who did you
make
a line with no birth
certificate
tracing from
Grenada
to St. Croix
to New Orleans
a bee-line
designed to clog machine guns
an oracle
fashioned from scraps
of cloth and ink
?

'i wish
you were
living

(up the road)"
and
i
no
that
you
are