Prologue: Audre Lorde Resurrection Sunday #2

Launched on Nov. 17th 2013 on the 21st anniversary of Audre Lorde's transition from an embodied warrior healer to an ancestral force, this is a weekly series of videos documenting and sharing my process of clarifying survival through a re-immersion in the words of Audre Lorde.  To see the whole series so far check out this link:  http://summerofourlorde.wordpress.com/resurrection-sundays/

This week's poem is Prologue, the last poem in Audre Lorde's 1973 collection From a Land Where Other People Live. I love the vampire imagery in this poem, and I see it as a poem that makes space for all of the amazing black feminist vampire fiction that comes after it. For example Jewelle Gomez found the epigraph for her classic vampire novel The Gilda Stories in this poem.

Our assignment this week is to speak the truth that we are afraid to speak in our chosen communities. Sometimes we feel that we would rather die than speak a difficult truth. Audre Lorde invokes the vampire undead to speak the truth she needs to speak about internalized racism in the Black Arts Movement, what creativity, what characters will we invent to speak the truth that our presence demands?

Every week as part of my practice of resurrecting Audre Lorde in my life and in our communities I will be making an alphabetical oracle from the weekly survival poem which will consist of up to 26 new poems based on the sacred source text.  If you would like to receive a custom poem as a blessing for your journey you can with a donation of your choice to Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind’s School of Our Lorde!

$10-20 one time donation:

A Black Feminist Oracle Poem (aka alphabetical found poem from within one of Audre Lorde’s poems about school/teaching) sent directly to your inbox!

(Just include the intention you want blessed and a letter of the alphabet so I can distill your poem!)

$30-100 (or a monthly sustainer rate of $5-15):

A 30-minute one on one Oracle Reading Session with an interpretation of your Black Feminist Oracle Poem.

(16 available)

$150-300 (or a monthly sustainer rate of $20-25):

An IN PERSON one on one Oracle Reading Session with an interpretation of your Black Feminist Oracle Poem when I am in your neck of the woods.

$1000-2000 (or $100+ sustainer rate):

A customized Audre Lorde based workshop for you and your crew including an installation of a Black Feminist Oracle activity for all participants when I am in your neck of the woods.