Audre Lorde

Audre Lorde was a self-described "Black lesbian, mother, warrior, poet." Her first poem was published in Seventeen Magazine while she was still in high school. From there, she went on to publish thirteen books of poetry and six books of prose.

In 1968, Lorde taught at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi. As a result of that and her life experience, themes in Lorde's artistic expressions embraced inequality, segregation and bigotry.

Lorde co-founded the Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press to protect and celebrate African American culture. She formed the Sisterhood in Support of Sisters in South Africa and was one of the featured speakers in 1979 at the first national march for gay and lesbian liberation in Washington DC.

Lorde won many awards and honors. She was the Poet Laureate for New York State from 1991-1993. In designating her New York State's Poet Laureate, Governor Mario Cuomo stated: "Her imagination is charged by a sharp sense of racial injustice and cruelty, of sexual prejudice . . . She cries out against it as the voice of indignant humanity. Audre Lorde is the voice of the eloquent outsider who speaks in a language that can reach and touch people everywhere."