Audre Lorde Discussion Questions and Questionnaire

THE AUDRE LORDE QUESTIONNAIRE TO ONESELF
Adapted from Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals by Divya Victor

1. What are the words you do not have yet? [Or, “for what do you not have words, yet?”]

2. What do you need to say? [List as many things as necessary]

3. 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? [List as many as necessary today. Then write a new list tomorrow. And the day after. ]

4. If we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own need for language, ask yourself: “What’s the
worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?” [So, answer this today. And everyday.]
THE AUDRE LORDE QUESTIONNAIRE TO ONESELF

Adapted from Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals by Divya Victor

1. What are the words you do not have yet? [Or, “for what do you not have words, yet?”]

2. What do you need to say? [List as many things as necessary]

3. 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? [List as many as necessary today. Then write a new list tomorrow. And the day after. ]

4. If we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own need for language, ask yourself: “What’s the
worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?” [So, answer this today. And everyday.]
Audre Lorde’s “Poetry is Not a Luxury” and “A Litany for Survival”: Discussion Questions
1. Lorde consistently refers to “white fathers” and “The Black mother” in her essay—what purpose does
this mapping of gender onto race serve? How can we understand Lorde’s argument through the conflicts
between patrilineal and matrilineal descent?
2. How can we think about the centrality of the act of naming to Lorde’s description of what poetry is?
What is naming, really, and what is the significance of naming? Who is allowed to name, and what does
it mean to reclaim the power to give new names to things and experiences?
3. How can we understand the last paragraph of the essay, beginning with “For there are no new ideas.
There are only new ways of making them felt—”? How does this relate to the idea of futurity that Lorde
develops?
4. Explain the title. By whose account would poetry be a luxury? If not that, then what is poetry for,
according to Lorde?
5. Lorde’s life and work was intimately tied up with the struggles of black liberation and the challenges of
black women in the white-dominated feminist movement. How can we think about the relationship
between these political struggles and her way of thinking about poetry? How does the idea of the dream
and dreaming function as a link between poetry and politics?
Audre Lorde’s “Poetry is Not a Luxury” and “A Litany for Survival”: Discussion Questions
1. Lorde consistently refers to “white fathers” and “The Black mother” in her essay—what purpose does
this mapping of gender onto race serve? How can we understand Lorde’s argument through the conflicts
between patrilineal and matrilineal descent?
2. How can we think about the centrality of the act of naming to Lorde’s description of what poetry is?
What is naming, really, and what is the significance of naming? Who is allowed to name, and what does
it mean to reclaim the power to give new names to things and experiences?
3. How can we understand the last paragraph of the essay, beginning with “For there are no new ideas.
There are only new ways of making them felt—”? How does this relate to the idea of futurity that Lorde
develops?
4. Explain the title. By whose account would poetry be a luxury? If not that, then what is poetry for,
according to Lorde?
5. Lorde’s life and work was intimately tied up with the struggles of black liberation and the challenges of
black women in the white-dominated feminist movement. How can we think about the relationship
between these political struggles and her way of thinking about poetry? How does the idea of the dream
and dreaming function as a link between poetry and politics?

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THE AUDRE LORDE QUESTIONNAIRE TO ONESELF

Adapted from Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals by Divya Victor

2. What do you need to say? [List as many things as necessary]

THE AUDRE LORDE QUESTIONNAIRE TO ONESELF

2. What do you need to say? [List as many things as necessary]

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