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Audre Lorde's World

Audre Lorde described herself as 'black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet'. Her words are set alongside recordings by Chineke!, the Kanneh-Masons, Sarah Vaughan and Miriam Makeba.

Performer Jade Anouka and Lorde鈥檚 children Elizabeth Lorde-Rollins and Jonathan Rollins read from her inspirational poems, novels and her cancer diaries with music choices ranging from recordings by Chineke! and the Kanneh-Mason family of composers including Florence Price and George Walker, to the singers she listened to including Miriam Makeba, Sarah Vaughan and Donna Summer.

Lorde's writing was inspired by her wish to confront and address injustices of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia. Brought up a Catholic in New York, she began writing poems as a teenager. In the 1960s she worked as a librarian in New York public schools and became a mother to her two children before divorcing from her husband, who was a white, gay man, in 1970. During her career she held a visiting Professorship at the Free University of Berlin and at various colleges and universities in America, co-founded the first U.S. publisher for women of colour, helped establish Sisterhood in Support of Sisters (SISA) in South Africa to benefit black women who were affected by apartheid and was New York State Poet Laureate. In an African naming ceremony before her death in 1992 at the age of 58 , she took the name Gamba Adisa, which means "Warrior: She Who Makes Her Meaning Known".

The journals Audre Lorde kept while undergoing a mastectomy originally published in 1980 are now available again and her1982 novel, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, Essays and poem collections including The Black Unicorn have also been republished in recent years.

You might be interested in this conversation on Free Thinking which features her children, the poet Jackie Kay and performer Selina Thompson /programmes/m0004my0 and you can find other discussions relating to Queer History Month in the Free Thinking Prose and Poetry collection.

Readings include:
Sister Outsider extracts
Zami A New Spelling of My Name extracts
A Litany for Survival
Harriet
On the Night of the Full Moon
A Burst of Light
1984
Letter to Mary Daly
Now That I am Forever with Child
The Cancer Journals extracts
Dahomey

Producer: Debbie Kilbride

1 hour, 14 minutes

Last on

Sun 5 Feb 2023 17:30
蜜芽传媒 Radio 3

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Music Played

Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes

  • Audre Lorde

    Luxury, read by Jade Anouka

  • 00:01

    Trad,/Hines, Gary Dennis

    Sun Up to Sundown

    Performer: Sounds of Blackness.
    • EMI.
    • 7.
  • 00:01

    Bob Marley

    Bob Marley: Redemption Song

    Performer: The Kanneh-Masons.
    • Decca.
    • 45.

  • Audre Lorde

    Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, read by Jade Anouka

  • 00:06

    Valerie Capers

    Portraits in Jazz: Billie聮s Song

    Performer: Maria Corley.
    • Albany Records.
    • 8.

  • Audre Lorde

    A Litany for Survival, read by Jonathan Rollins

  • Audre Lorde

    Poetry Is Not a Luxury, read by Jade Anouka

  • 00:13

    Fela Sowande

    African Suite, Nostalgia

    Orchestra: Chicago Sinfonietta. Conductor: Paul Freeman.
    • Cedille Records.
    • 7.

  • Audre Lorde

    Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, read by Elizabeth Lorde-Rollins

  • 00:18

    Rub茅n Fuentes

    Las Alazanas

    Performer: Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitl谩n.
    • Vintage.
    • 13.

  • Audre Lorde

    Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, read by Jade Anouka

  • 00:19

    Bob Marley and Vincent Ford

    No Woman, No Cry

    Performer: Sheku Kanneh鈥怣ason.
    • Decca.
    • 11.

  • Audre Lorde

    Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, read by Elizabeth Lorde-Rollins

  • Audre Lorde

    On a Night of the Full Moon, read by Jade Anouka

  • 00:22

    Cynthia Weil

    Just A Little Lovin'

    Composer: Barry Mann. Performer: Sarah Vaughan.
    • Mainstream Records.
    • 4.

  • Audre Lorde

    Harriet, read by Elizabeth Lorde-Rollins

  • Audre Lorde

    Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, read by Jade Anouka

  • 00:27

    Hall Johnson

    Take My Mother 蜜芽传媒

    Performer: Harry Belafonte.
    • RCA Victor.
    • 5.

  • Audre Lorde

    Extract from The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism, read by Jade Anouka

  • 00:31

    Philip Herbert

    Elegy (In Memoriam Stephen Lawrence)

    Orchestra: Chineke! Orchestra. Conductor: Anthony Parnther.
    • NMC Recordings.
    • 8.
  • 00:38

    Burt Bacharach

    What The World Needs Now Is Love

    Lyricist: Hal David. Performer: Dionne Warwick.
    • Warner Music UK Limited.
    • 8.

  • Audre Lorde

    Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, read by Jonathan Rollins

  • 00:41

    Daniel Kidane

    Dream Song (live)

    Orchestra: Chineke! Orchestra. Singer: Roderick Williams. Conductor: Anthony Parnther.
    • NMC Recordings.
    • 6.

  • Audre Lorde

    Extract from An Open Letter to Mary Daly, read by Elizabeth Lorde-Rollins

  • 00:50

    Miriam Makeba

    Pata Pata

    Composer: Jerry Ragovoy. Performer: Miriam Makeba.
    • Warner.
    • CD2 Tr 8.
  • 00:52

    Johann Pachelbel

    Canon in D Major

    Orchestra: Jean-Fran莽ois Paillard Chamber Orchestra. Conductor: Jean鈥怓ran莽ois Paillard.
    • Denon.
    • 1.

  • Audre Lorde

    1984, read by Jade Anouka

  • Audre Lorde

    Now That I Am Forever with Child, read by Elizabeth Lorde-Rollins

  • Audre Lorde

    Extract from Breast Cancer: Power Vs. Prosthesis, read by Jade Anouka

  • 00:59

    Paul Simon

    The Sound of Silence

    Performer: Simon & Garfunkel.
    • Sony Music.
    • 10.

  • Audre Lorde

    Extract from The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action, read by Jade Anouka

  • 01:02

    Errollyn Wallen

    Concerto Grosso: I

    Orchestra: Chineke! Orchestra. Conductor: Anthony Parnther.
    • NMC Recordings.
    • 1.

  • Audre Lorde

    Extract from The Master聮s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master聮s House, read by Jonathan Rollins

  • 01:09

    N/A

    Dahomey

    Performer: Audre Lorde.
    • Rhino Records.
    • 21.
  • 01:11

    Vangelis

    State Of Independence

    Composer: Jon Anderson. Performer: Donna Summer.
    • Mercury Records Limited.
    • 13.

Broadcasts

  • Sun 27 Dec 2020 17:30
    蜜芽传媒 Radio 3
  • Sun 5 Feb 2023 17:30
    蜜芽传媒 Radio 3

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