Audre Lorde's Poetry: Fania Noël, Maboula Soumahoro, and Oceana James

Activist, prophetic, flamboyant, sensual -- to read Audre Lorde's poetry is to feel like you've been shot in the heart. Her poems, all at once raging, joyful, bitter and erotic, can be read as a journey. A journey through the life of a woman, black, mother, lover, feminist, lesbian. A journey through a given time and its struggles that echoes ours. A journey through a poetic work that aims to sharpen the shape of its words and ideas.

Audre Lorde was central to many liberation movements and activist circles, including second-wave feminism, civil rights and Black cultural movements, and struggles for LGBTQ equality. In particular, Lorde’s poetry is known for the power of its call for social and racial justice, as well as its depictions of queer experience and sexuality.

On June 5 at 6pm, join French scholars Fania Noël and Maboula Soumahoro as they discuss the revolutionary poetic work of Audre Lorde on the occasion of the publication in France of Contrechant, a collection of Lorde’s poems translated by Collectif Cételle, postfaced by Maboula Soumahoro, and illustrated by Maya Mihindou, éditions Les Prouesses. The evening will feature readings by theater artist Oceana James