#audrelorde — Public Fediverse posts

Writing Our Mothers
Archive on 4

‘Mothers have such a weight of idealisation and expectation landed upon their bodies and their minds and what women writers can do is to take that apart and explore
its underbelly,’ says feminist writer Jacqueline Rose.

Whether worshipped or vilified, treated as lifetime confidantes or rarely trusted, the mothers we meet when we write them are re-inventions. Some may be closer to the
truth than others. Many of them will have roots in the life experiences of the daughter-writer. Virginia Woolf, who lost her mother at the age of 13, said she was obsessed with writing her mother. Eventually she also argued that it was ‘the occupation of the woman writer to kill’ what she called ‘The Angel in the House’ – the perfect, self-sacrificing mother – who may well have been her own maternal influence.

Drawing on interviews with Maya Angelou, we hear how for her to write her mother was to ‘write about a hurricane in its perfect power’. She describes how the influence of a mother who ‘abandoned’ her as a child forced her most urgent examinations of class, race and, importantly love. In another frank interview with Marguerite Duras from 1968, she describes writing as a search for connection with her raging and ‘mad’ mother. For Sylvia Plath, the process of writing about becoming a mother herself in the 1950s produced work of a psychic intensity rarely seen before.

What the archive ultimately reveals is that a mother, whether present or absent, loving or cruel, might be as formative an influence on a writer’s work, as in life. ‘When I read about motherhood, I want to be shaken loose from whatever limitations I have when I think about what that means,’ says the writer Siri Hustvedt.

With contributions from Susie Orbach, Jacqueline Rose, Kit de Waal and Siri Hustvedt, and narration from Amaka Okafor.

Produced by Sarah Cuddon
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4

Archive sources:
Desert Island Discs with Arundhati Roy (2017)
A Chance to Meet ... Edna O'Brien (1971)
Sylvia Plath, Peter Orr interview (1962)
Audre Lorde, Pacifica Radio Archives and Academy of American Poets www.poets.org
Maya Angelou, BBC News (1985)
Jeannette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (BBC, 1990) and Face To Face (BBC, 1994)
Marguerite Duras, Worn Out With Desire To Write (1985)
Toni Morrison, Brief Encounters (BBC, 2001)
Jackie Kay, Book of the Week (The Waters Company for BBC R4, 2015)
Elena Ferrante, Lying Lives of Adults (BBC, 2020)

Available now

57 minutes

#BBCRadio4 #BBCArchiveOn4

#ArundhatiRoy #EdnaOBrien
#SylviaPlath #AudreLorde
#MayaAngelou #JeannetteWinterson
#MargueriteDuras #ToniMorrison
#JackieKay #ElenaFerrante

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001k7s1

i am going to write fire! #audrelorde #thenib

"Water, food and a decent temperature range are needed for our survival.
[…]
We can act consequently."
http://data.yt/kit/water-food-and-temperature.html

Would you know a person born around 1950 and who would have lived in NYC in the late 1970's? I am looking for details on the below photograph.

#manifesto #Lorde #AudreLorde #conference #feminism #intersectionality #NYC #climateChange #photography #ecology

#Ef0407 #AudreLorde #ScheißAfD #NichtSchonWieder #WiderstandIstPflicht

"Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare. — Audre Lorde

She wrote it while dying of cancer, while the world told Black lesbians their bodies were disposable. Strategy, not comfort. The enemy would love to watch you burn out — it costs them nothing and removes you for free.

#AudreLorde #SelfPreservation #Wellness #Resist #QueerWisdom #Pride #MutualAid #Rest #Resistance #BlackQueer #Quote

https://twp.ai/4hrunS

"Your silence will not protect you." Audre Lorde wrote it in the terror of a body running out of time, and it outlived her because it was never only about her. Today's issue holds the fury and the tending both: skullcap for the worn nerve, a jaw release, the mimosa blooming on schedule anyway.
https://twp.ai/9OXbjc
#AudreLorde #Herbalism #SelfCare #MentalHealth #Mindfulness #Poetry #QueerHistory #Healing #Wellness #Mosstodon

"Your silence will not protect you." — Audre Lorde. Today: the fury, then skullcap, breath, and the mimosa blooming anyway. https://twp.ai/4hsMXY #AudreLorde #SelfCare #Herbalism #MentalHealth #Healing #Poetry #Mindfulness

thistleandmoss.com

"Better to speak." — Audre Lorde
A president loved your hunger out loud today. A machine sewed a lie onto an honest man's face. The temptation is to go quiet, make yourself small enough to miss.
Don't. Silence was never safety. Only a quieter kind of afraid.
https://twp.ai/E5Ctoc
#AudreLorde #Resist #LGBTQ #Pride #Queer #Activism #Community #Solidarity #SpeakUp #MutualAid

"We were never meant to survive." — Audre Lorde. "Unison" ends on that bare floor, where there's no move on the board that lifts the loneliness or calls off the eyes. The going-on regardless — even-paced, mute, alone, the key an inch off the lock — is the whole stubborn fact of her.
https://twp.ai/4hsQlX
#AudreLorde #TransRights #QueerLit #Solidarity #LGBTQ #Fiction #TransVisibility #MutualAid #Bookstodon #QueerHistory

A quotation from Audre Lorde

Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me.

Audre Lorde (1934-1992) American writer, feminist, civil rights activist
Essay (1983-10), “Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred, and Anger,” Essence Magazine, Vol. 14, No. 6

More about this quote: wist.info/lorde-audre/49145/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #audrelorde #acceptance #defense #guilt #history #leverage #self #selfacceptance #selfdefense #selfimage #shame #vulnerability #weakness #weapon

The Enemy Outside and the Enemy Within: Audre Lorde’s Antidote to Despair

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.themarginalian.org/2026/05/12/audre-lorde-despair/

Eu: não quero pensar.

Eu também: lendo Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power

#AudreLorde

"Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare."
— Audre Lorde, 1988

Today honors three who refused to wait to be invited: Rustin, Rivera, Lorde.

#AudreLorde #QueerHistory #BlackHistory #LGBTQHistory #Resistance → https://twp.ai/9OUj1C

RE: https://toot.cafe/@baldur/116307441029006075

This is a good article about Cory Doctorow's weird and self-serving misunderstanding of Audre Lord's famous observation about the master's tools. The author explains that Doctorow takes the line out of context and then tells us that his example of antitrust law "would be a defensible claim if that was the argument Audre Lorde was making in the first place."

In other words she seems to agree with Doctorow that antitrust law is an example of the master's tools dismantling the master's house, or at least not to completely dismiss this claim. But even though Lorde wasn't talking about this kind of tool her analysis still holds, even for antitrust law and other regulatory structures that superficially seem to limit capitalist exploitation.

One of capitalism:s biggest maintenance problems is that their victims inevitably realize what's being done to them and rebel. The ruling classes inevitably respond by moving things around so that the exploitation can continue but in more hidden ways. For instance Anglo-American chattel slavery was not only horrific but obviously visibly horrific. Everyone could see the horror. There was a huge abolitionist movement in Britain and ongoing slave rebellions, including the consequential 1831 Baptist War, which apparently involved around 60K of the 300K enslaved people in Jamaica.[1] Just two years later the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 took effect.[2] The British government didn't abolish slavery to protect slaves from exploitation but to protect capitalism from short-sighted capitalists who didn't recognize the peril their whole project was in due to popular resistance. The Brits offshored slavery's contributions to their economy to the American south, where it was still viable, at least for a while.

If the very abolition of slavery didn't dismantle the master's house there's no reason to expect that breaking up a monopoly or two is going to destroy capitalism. The ruling class doesn't create laws they can't work around. They wait till popular resistance threatens their exploitative project and then pass laws that silence the resistance but don't actually solve the problem. The Pure Food and Drug Act, all of FDR's social welfare measures, etc. These are not tools with which the master's house can be dismantled. They're tools our masters use to strengthen their house's foundations.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptist_War

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_Abolition_Act_1833

#AudreLorde #CoryDoctorow #TheMastersTools #Slavery #Abolition #AntitrustLaw #Capitalism

#BlackHistoryMonth #AudreLorde

#WMPG honors #BlackHistoryMonth

"WMPG recognizes Black History Month with special programming throughout the month of February, highlighting the voices, music, history, and lived experiences of Black artists, activists, and storytellers.

Tune in to hear programs that celebrate Black creativity and resilience across genres and generations, from music that shaped movements to conversations that deepen our understanding of the past and present."

Segments include:
#MarshaPJohnson, #RobertLewis, #EarthaKitt, #MalcomX, #AlvinAiley, #BobGreen, #ChadwickBoseman, #DukeEllington, #LewisLatimer, #AudreLord, #ATribeCalledQuest, #OtisRedding, #NelsonMandela, #GarzaCullorsTometi, #LeslieOdomJr, #NinaSimone, #AudraMcDonald #BelHooks, #Beyonce, #FlorencePrice, #JamesBaldwin, #MuhammadAli, #ScottJoplin, #GraceVenuzaRogers, #BobTheDragQueen, #GordonParks, #KobeBryant, #WEBDubois, #BarackObama, #AudreLorde, #Lizzo, #KatherineJohnson, #ClaudetteColvin, #RhiannonGiddens, #TaranaBurke, #TeresaKachindamoto, #ShirleyChisholm, #ThurgoodMarshall, #HarrietTubman, #JohnBrownRusswurm, #StevieWonder, #LeadBelly, #MaryMcleodBethune, #ShirleyChisolm, #LeonardCummings, #MaeJemison, #BadBrains, #CornelWest, #MaconBollingAllen, #SpikeLee, #BeverlyGlennCopeland, #AngelaDavis, #SojournerTruth, #HankAaron, #BillieHoliday, #GeraldTalbot, #TrevorNoah, #JosephineBaker, #JackieRobinson, #ArethaFranklin, #ToniMorrison, #RobertLewis, #IndigoArts

Listen:
https://www.wmpg.org/wmpg-honors-black-history-month/

#BlackHistory #BlackArtists #BlackMusicians #BlackActivists #CommunityRadio #CollegeRadio

Dreamspace Lantern for 2/2/2026: Embrace Resistance: Every Act Matters

https://dreamspacestudio.net/dreamspace-lantern-for-2-2-2026-embrace-resistance-every-act-matters/

Seeing Jake Paul and Andrew Tate both have their arses handed to them on the same weekend is proof that Audre Lorde ascended to take her rightful place on the Heavenly Throne, and that she is loving and gracious god!

All hail our Lorde and our Salvation!

God is good!

#FuckThePatriarchy #AndrewTate #JakePaul #AudreLorde

🎅 The Researcher Services Unit of the Libraries of Université Côte d’Azur wishes you all happy holidays. We will be back from Monday, January 5, 2026. And if you would like to take advantage of the end-of-year holidays for some reading, you can immerse yourself in the work of Audre Lorde (American poet and librarian, feminist, civil rights activist, and engaged in the fight against discrimination), in the latest issue of the journal Loxias, a diamond open-access journal available on the Epi-Revel platform: https://epi-revel.univ-cotedazur.fr/collections/show/1977

---------------

🎅La mission services aux chercheurs de la direction des bibliothèques et de la science ouverte d'Université Côte d'Azur vous souhaite de bonnes fêtes à tous ! Nous nous retrouverons à partir du lundi 5 janvier 2026. Et si vous voulez profiter des congés de fin d'année pour un peu de lecture, vous pouvez vous plonger dans l'oeuvre d'Audre Lorde (poétesse et bibliothécaire américaine, féministe, militante pour les droits civiques et engagée dans la lutte contre les discriminations), dans le dernier numéro de la revue Loxias, revue diamant disponible sur la plate forme Epi-Revel : https://epi-revel.univ-cotedazur.fr/collections/show/1977

#openscience #audrelorde #diamondOA #DiBSO #UniCA #openaccess