Audre Lorde

An Interview with Audre Lorde

Audre Lorde has published seven books of poetry, most recently Coal (1976) and The Black Unicorn (1978), both published by W. W. Norton. Her Cancer Journals, a collection of prose, was published by Spinsters Ink in 1980. She was born in New York City, attended Hunter High School and Hunter College, received her degree as a librarian, and is a professor of English at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in the City University of New York. She is now at work on a novel. This interview, held on August 30, 1979, was edited from three hours of tapes we made together. It was commissioned by Marilyn Hacker, the guest editor of Woman Poet: The Northeast (general editor, Elaine Dallman), where portions of it appear.

Desire Work, Performativity, and the Structuring of a Community: Butch/Fem Relations of the 1940s and g95os

The breakdown into the mommies and daddies was an important part of lesbian relationships in the Bagatelle [a working-class lesbian bar in Greenwich Village, New York, during the 195os]. If you asked the wrong woman to dance, you could get your nose broken in the alley down the street by her butch, who had followed you out of the Bag for exactly that purpose.... And you were never supposed to ask who was who, which is why there was such heavy emphasis upon correct garb. The well-dressed gay girl was supposed to give you enough cues for you to know.