Audre Lorde's home-office “force field”

“I have a study upstairs, and I pull it around me like a blanket.”

It’s National Poetry Month! Last week, we looked at Robert Lowell, supine poet. This week, Audre Lorde on writing at home.

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Audre Lorde (1934–1992)

I looked around when I was a young woman and there was no one saying what I wanted and needed to hear. I felt totally alienated, disoriented, crazy. I thought that there’s got to be somebody else who feels as I do.”

This is Lorde in 1979, describing the fundamental impetus for her career as a poet—or, as she famously described herself, a “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet.” A few years later, Lorde was asked what elements she considered essential to creating strong poetry. “I think there are two things that are most important,” she replied.