Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz on Audre Lorde

“The poet Audre Lorde has said, "Poetry is not a luxury." I think it is no accident that these words were spoken by a Black lesbian radical poet, and that they have been echoed throughout the feminist writers community.”

“We can watch a classic becoming. When Audre Lorde tells a room full of women, many lesbians, many Black women, "Your silence will not protect you," and Gloria Hull writes "Poem," dedicated to Audre Lorde, which concludes: "Dear Eshu's Audre/please keep on/teaching us/how/to speak/to know/that now/"our labor is/more important than/our silence" and this poem is chosen to introduce Conditions: Five-The Black Women's Issue, we know we're in the presence of something classic. The invocation. The passionate connection. The exhortation to speak.”