A review by saivani
The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde

challenging hopeful inspiring sad medium-paced

5.0

Ugh! Shapeshifter, inventer of biomythology, Black, lesbian, mother, icon!

Committed to facing fear head on, embracing life as it is death itself, centring radicalism in her journey with cancer, this was a masterpiece and the balm I needed. 

She understands what seems to not be understood and speaks into all the emotions you’re holding on to. I felt like she was holding me tenderly, I needed that. Thank you Audre Lorde. 

Some excerpts:

“I am who the world and I have never seen before.”

“The acceptance of death as a fact, rather than the desire to die, can empower my energies with a forcefulness and vigor not always possible when one eye is out unconsciously for eternity”

“What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? Perhaps for some of you here today, I am the face of one of your fears. Because I am woman, because I am black, because I am lesbian, because I am myself, a black woman warrior poet doing my work, come to ask you, are you doing yours?”