SURVIVAL IS A PROMISE

A celebration of a tireless advocate.

Gumbs, a queer Black feminist poet, pays homage to Audre Lorde (1934-1992), drawing on her subject’s poetry, published prose, and the trove of archival sources—including journals and her own hair—that Lorde donated to Spelman College. Responding to Lorde’s evocation of nature in her works, Gumbs describes her book as a “cosmic biography where the dynamics of the planet and the universe are never separate from the life of any being.” Stars, hurricanes, and even whale songs feature in a narrative notable for lyrical prose and unabashed admiration. Disability shaped Lorde’s childhood, notes the author. She didn’t speak until she was 5, and she stuttered when she finally did speak; in addition, she was visually impaired. Her parents, Caribbean immigrants, were strict. Lorde recalled “constant and unpredictable punishment” but also her father’s reverence for books, which nurtured her love for reading. She tested into the prestigious Hunter High School, where she found her first love; when she took her own life, Lorde was devastated. After graduating, although she won a scholarship, her family couldn’t afford to pay tuition, so she worked her way through Hunter College, which was free, spent a year at the University of Mexico, and continued on to Columbia’s School of Library Service. Gumbs offers thoughtful analyses of Lorde’s poems, as well as the pressures and pleasures of her life: friends and lovers; marriage to a white gay man; motherhood; divorce; and recurring cancer. Her most enduring relationship was with Black feminist scholar Gloria Joseph. The first Black faculty member in the English department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Lorde subsequently taught poetry at Hunter College. Throughout a storied career, her commitment to Black feminist communities—and to speaking out against injustice, racism, and oppression—was unwavering.

A defiant woman sensitively and incisively portrayed.