Text Experiment: Imaginations of Complete Visions.

Understanding Audre Lorde’s "Poetry is Not a Luxury" in a Black Queer Space Time

Abstract

Black queer poet Audre Lorde emphasized the complexity of the issues involved in striving for the participation of all people in a democracy, a topic present in Lorde’s unpublished correspondence, speeches, essays, and published interviews. Lorde described poetry as a playground of ideas and a space for accessible exchange within and between social groups, as well as a means of expressing participatory claims against democracies and governments. Through a conversation between freedom thinkers and poets, this essay reveals continuities in the expression, exploration, and formulation of freedom through the centuries.