Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde [Paperback]

Alexis De Veaux (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 17, 2006

Winner of the 2005 Lambda Literary Award, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award: the first and "essential" (Choice) biography of the author, poet, and American icon of womanhood, black arts, and survival.

During her lifetime, Audre Lorde (1934-1992), author of the landmark Cancer Journals, created a mythic identity for herself that retains its vitality to this day. Drawing from the private archives of the poet's estate and numerous interviews, Alexis De Veaux demystifies Lorde's iconic status, charting her conservative childhood in Harlem; her early marriage to a white, gay man with whom she had two children; her emergence as an outspoken black feminist lesbian; and her canonization as a seminal poet of American literature.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This biography of Audre Lorde, the self-described "black, lesbian, feminist, mother, poet warrior" who died of metastasized breast cancer in 1992, at age 58, captures the complexities of a charismatic figure whose every personal move was indeed political. De Veaux, chair of the women's studies department at SUNY-Buffalo, draws from over 60 of Lorde's unpublished journals as well as testimony from friends and family, though she points out with academic caution in her introduction that this is only a "subjective" story. De Veaux divides her book between Lorde's "two lives," her emergence from a difficult Harlem childhood to a celebrated literary career and, later, her struggle with cancer. Born in 1934 to Caribbean immigrants, Lorde had a persistent, haunting feeling of being an outsider. An early interracial marriage to Ed Rollins brought two children, but Lorde came to find deeper satisfaction in lesbian love, embarking on a decades-long relationship with Frances Clayton and maintaining erotic friendships with activists and poets who informed and shaped her work. By the 1980s, Lorde's writings were internationally recognized, and she continued to articulate her ideas on race, sexuality and gender in groundbreaking ways, eventually bravely documenting her personal experience with breast cancer. This account does not include Lorde's final days, focusing instead on her working years. While De Veaux occasionally slips into academic-speak, she is a skilled biographer, pulling together the contradictory facts of Lorde's public and private personae with ease. Subjective it may be, but Warrior Poet is also a satisfying portrait of a brave life. 16 pages of photos not seen by PW.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

De Veaux’s thorough tale of a complicated artist is compelling. Lorde comes to life, and her powerful prose is presented in a whole new light. (Essence )

Warrior Poet is a literary event of considerable significance. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution )

A clearly written and extensively researched volume that is every bit as formidable as Lorde herself was, and will likely be regarded as the definitive study of the controversial poet. (Buffalo News )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (November 17, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393329356
• ISBN-13: 978-0393329353
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #451,040 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Unafraid to Fight, September 7, 2004

By 

The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers (RAWSISTAZ.com and BlackBookReviews.net) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde (Hardcover)

Alexis DeVeaux presents a comprehensive account of self-described feminist, lesbian, and poet warrior, Audre Lorde. The author pulls together a myriad of published documents, unpublished journal entries by Audre Lorde herself, and a host of interviews with personal friends and family members to create a well documented look at the poet's life. The book is divided into two major sections called "lives." The first life begins prior to Audre's birth, and highlights some aspects of her parent's early life, their eventual marriage and move from the Caribbean to the United States. This family background helps readers understand Audre's nearly lifelong quest to come to terms with her relationship with her often emotionally detached parents. This portion of the book also details information about Audre's childhood, educational background, and young adult life. We learn about Audre's marriage to a white, gay, man and their eventual divorce and follow her process of "coming out" regarding her own lesbianism. Her long-term relationship with a white woman, Frances Clayton, and the challenges associated with raising a bi-racial son and daughter in a lesbian household during an era of rampant, overt racism and sexism was also discussed. DeVeaux also takes time to highlight some of Audre Lorde's flaws, thus providing a somewhat more balanced view of the author. Her professional career as a poet develops slowly, and the evolution of her writing career parallels the evolution of her political views and personal growth.

The second section of the book, "The Second Life," continues to explore her career development, chronicles her battles with cancer in more detail, and ends with her death. Audre Lorde supported freedom and equality for all, regardless of race, gender, class, or sexual orientation. However, because of her strong views and personal lifestyle, she often found herself on the fringes. Many white feminists were uncomfortable with her views on race, while those involved in the black power movement tended to be uncomfortable with her feminist ideology and her lesbianism. Yet she used her own struggles, particularly her battle with cancer, as a means to educate, motivate, and inspire.

I enjoyed WARRIOR POET and was impressed by Alexis DeVeaux's attention to detail and the time she spent helping readers understand the social and political climate of the times. There were times when I felt she went a little too far "setting the stage" and wanted to read more about Audre and less about other poets, or politics. Audre seemed to use her identity to take on very public battles for women's rights, gay rights, and so forth. But I found myself wanting to know more about how her children handled their mother's public persona. I also wondered how her very conservative, Catholic mother and her other siblings responded to Audre's lifestyle, and this issue was surprisingly never addressed. In spite of its sometimes academic feel, this is a must read for anyone that wants to learn more about an important literary figure.

Reviewed by Stacey Seay
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers