WEBVTT

00:00:11.900 --> 00:00:13.630
Hello loved ones!

00:00:13.630 --> 00:00:15.495
I'm Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs,

00:00:15.495 --> 00:00:19.776
welcome back to Audre Lorde Resurrection Sunday.

00:00:19.776 --> 00:00:23.882
Um... catching up! I'm catching up 
on the Sundays that I missed,

00:00:23.882 --> 00:00:30.033
and this past weekend we were in Houston,

00:00:30.033 --> 00:00:33.360
facilitating Mobile Homecoming, grounding,

00:00:33.360 --> 00:00:35.588
with a team of awesome facilitators,

00:00:35.588 --> 00:00:42.050
The Fullness: an all day institute 
on erotic power and spiritual wellness,

00:00:42.050 --> 00:00:46.012
inspired by Audre Lorde's 
"Uses of the Erotic/Power of the Erotic."

00:00:46.012 --> 00:00:48.161
And it was incredible,

00:00:48.161 --> 00:00:50.886
about a hundred people 
participated throughout the day,

00:00:50.886 --> 00:00:54.919
and it was powerful to witness all these folks

00:00:54.919 --> 00:01:00.191
stepping into their full, embodied power
in relationship to their sexuality,

00:01:00.191 --> 00:01:05.260
their sexual practice, their political practice, 
their creative practice,

00:01:05.260 --> 00:01:09.355
their spiritual and religious practice,
everything.

00:01:09.355 --> 00:01:14.566
So, one of the poems that we used, 
and did an oracle with during the institute,

00:01:14.566 --> 00:01:21.303
is Audre Lorde's "Love Poem", from her collection 
New York City Headshop and Museum.

00:01:21.303 --> 00:01:23.992
And I'm gonna share it with you right now.

00:01:28.028 --> 00:01:31.829
<i>"Love Poem"</i>

00:01:31.829 --> 00:01:37.434
<i>Speak earth and bless me with what is richest</i>

00:01:37.434 --> 00:01:40.600
<i>make sky flow honey out of my hips</i>

00:01:40.600 --> 00:01:42.692
<i>rigid as mountains</i>

00:01:42.692 --> 00:01:44.421
<i>spread over a valley</i>

00:01:44.421 --> 00:01:48.525
<i>carved out by the mouth of rain.</i>

00:01:48.525 --> 00:01:53.288
<i>And I knew when I entered her I was</i>

00:01:53.288 --> 00:01:55.801
<i>high wind in her forests</i>

00:01:55.801 --> 00:01:59.584
<i>hollow fingers whispering sound</i>

00:01:59.584 --> 00:02:03.125
<i>honey flowed from the split cup</i>

00:02:03.125 --> 00:02:06.351
<i>impaled on a lance of tongues</i>

00:02:06.351 --> 00:02:10.986
<i>on the tips of her breasts, on her navel</i>

00:02:10.986 --> 00:02:14.389
<i>and my breath, howling into her entrances</i>

00:02:14.389 --> 00:02:17.887
<i>through lungs of pain.</i>

00:02:17.887 --> 00:02:20.392
<i>Greedy as herring-gulls</i>

00:02:20.392 --> 00:02:22.260
<i>or a child</i>

00:02:22.260 --> 00:02:26.180
<i>I swing out over the earth</i>

00:02:26.180 --> 00:02:28.321
<i>over and over</i>

00:02:28.321 --> 00:02:30.294
<i>again.</i>

00:02:32.740 --> 00:02:36.149
So, I love this poem for many reasons.

00:02:36.149 --> 00:02:40.184
Two that are really important in terms of 
this whole context of survival,

00:02:40.184 --> 00:02:43.478
and re-defining survival 
with the guidance of Audre Lorde,

00:02:43.478 --> 00:02:51.078
are that this is a poem where she talks explicitly 
and makes a connection between

00:02:51.078 --> 00:02:57.540
her sexual practice, her intimate embodied love 
for women or for a woman,

00:02:57.540 --> 00:03:03.582
and her spiritual practice of connecting with nature, 
connecting with the earth itself,

00:03:03.582 --> 00:03:08.984
and the valleys and the rain
and everything.

00:03:08.984 --> 00:03:12.597
And I think that the Fullness Institute 
was really all about that...

00:03:12.597 --> 00:03:18.760
how can we activate our embodied practice,
and our intimacy with each other,

00:03:18.760 --> 00:03:21.126
and our intimacy with ourselves

00:03:21.126 --> 00:03:25.736
as a resource that has us be more alive, 
more connected with nature,

00:03:25.736 --> 00:03:29.012
and more in tune with our spiritual power.

00:03:29.012 --> 00:03:34.349
So, we're really excited about what all the participants in the institute will do with that

00:03:34.349 --> 00:03:35.921
as they go forward.

00:03:35.921 --> 00:03:39.653
We are thrilled about all of 
the co-sponsoring organizations,

00:03:39.653 --> 00:03:46.526
25 different organizations who are doing this work,
helping people live fully in their bodies year round,

00:03:46.526 --> 00:03:49.931
and you can check that out if you go to the
Mobile Homecoming tumblr:

00:03:49.931 --> 00:03:53.502
mobilehomecoming.tumblr.com

00:03:53.502 --> 00:03:56.513
And the other thing that I think is 
really important about this poem,

00:03:56.513 --> 00:04:00.404
--and this speaks to your assignment should you choose to accept it--

00:04:00.404 --> 00:04:05.383
is that when Audre Lorde first submitted this poem for publication with her publisher at the time,

00:04:05.383 --> 00:04:10.399
Broadside Press, which is one of the most important
publishers of the black arts movement,

00:04:10.399 --> 00:04:14.259
her editor pushed back

00:04:14.259 --> 00:04:15.965
and said that <i>Oh, this is confusing,</i>

00:04:15.965 --> 00:04:18.666
<i>there's something you know about the pronouns,</i>

00:04:18.666 --> 00:04:20.532
*<i>"I" entered "her", you know, that doesn't...</i>

00:04:20.532 --> 00:04:23.666
<i>that doesn't really make sense...</i>

00:04:23.666 --> 00:04:24.533
And Audre Lorde was like

00:04:24.533 --> 00:04:26.351
<i>no, there's nothing wrong with the pronouns,</i>

00:04:26.351 --> 00:04:29.136
<i>y'know, I'm saying exactly what I want to say</i>.

00:04:29.136 --> 00:04:33.639
But the way that Broadside Press 
had been marketing her work

00:04:33.639 --> 00:04:38.493
was as a mother, as a Black Nationalist woman,
as a teacher,

00:04:38.493 --> 00:04:40.223
not as her whole self,

00:04:40.223 --> 00:04:45.258
as a Black, lesbian, warrior, poet, mother,
who she was.

00:04:45.258 --> 00:04:48.586
And she took a stand with this particular poem,

00:04:48.586 --> 00:04:51.480
which Broadside Press did publish 
in her next collection,

00:04:51.480 --> 00:04:53.288
New York City Headshop and Museum,

00:04:53.288 --> 00:04:56.422
and she also read the poem publicly
all around New York City

00:04:56.422 --> 00:05:01.779
as one of her acts of declaring who she was
and how she worked,

00:05:01.779 --> 00:05:03.515
how her spiritual practice worked,

00:05:03.515 --> 00:05:06.580
what the role of her love for women 
was in her life,

00:05:06.580 --> 00:05:11.852
not just as an abstract idea, but also as 
an embodied way of engaging with the planet.

00:05:11.852 --> 00:05:19.091
And it was really a poem that allowed her 
to unapologetically declare who she was,

00:05:19.091 --> 00:05:24.618
and when someone interviewed her about why she named herself in these ways,

00:05:24.618 --> 00:05:31.261
why every time she spoke she came to say 
"<i>I am a Black lesbian warrior poet mother,</i>"

00:05:31.261 --> 00:05:33.932
<i>doing my work, come to ask you 
are you doing yours?"</i>

00:05:33.932 --> 00:05:37.512
Someone asked her, <i>y'know, why do you have this whole litany of words when you introduce yourself?</i>

00:05:37.512 --> 00:05:43.461
And she shared that she had not known that

00:05:43.461 --> 00:05:48.165
Langston Hughes, a poet who had mentored her,
who she knew personally,

00:05:48.165 --> 00:05:53.122
who was very important to her as a poet,

00:05:53.122 --> 00:05:54.197
as he's important to all of us,

00:05:54.197 --> 00:05:56.272
but also as a person who she knew,

00:05:56.272 --> 00:05:58.820
who gave her advice about her own poetry,

00:05:58.820 --> 00:06:06.494
she never knew about his sexuality,
about that aspect of his life until after he was dead.

00:06:06.494 --> 00:06:08.229
And she decided at that moment,

00:06:08.229 --> 00:06:12.975
she wanted everyone to know 
the parts of herself that mattered to her.

00:06:12.975 --> 00:06:17.671
And she knew that she wouldn't be able to predict 
who would find healing

00:06:17.671 --> 00:06:22.192
in her ability to unapologetically declare 
who she was,

00:06:22.192 --> 00:06:25.861
who would be out there who could identify 
with a piece of who she was

00:06:25.861 --> 00:06:28.979
and would live to see her example.

00:06:28.979 --> 00:06:31.634
And I love that, I love hearing that and knowing that,

00:06:31.634 --> 00:06:38.536
because of course, I am a person 
who found her work after she passed on.

00:06:38.536 --> 00:06:42.472
I'm absolutely empowered by the unapologetic way 
she described herself,

00:06:42.472 --> 00:06:49.975
and I'm sure many of us, many of you watching 
this video are also empowered by her bravery.

00:06:49.975 --> 00:06:54.373
So! Your assignment for this week
in the name of Audre Lorde

00:06:54.373 --> 00:06:56.957
is to think about that.

00:06:56.957 --> 00:07:02.653
What is something about yourself that 
you want to declare more unapologetically?

00:07:02.653 --> 00:07:05.509
It could have to do with your sexuality 
or sensuality or your practice,

00:07:05.509 --> 00:07:07.964
or it could really also be anything, y'know, like,

00:07:07.964 --> 00:07:13.224
if you are an artist but you've been kind of underplaying that part of who you are,

00:07:13.224 --> 00:07:18.172
what would it look like to unapologetically 
declare yourself as an artist?

00:07:18.172 --> 00:07:23.087
To highlight your creative practice
where people can see it.

00:07:23.087 --> 00:07:24.648
Or whatever it is, you know,

00:07:24.648 --> 00:07:28.485
if you really wanna highlight your relationship with your siblings more...

00:07:28.485 --> 00:07:32.049
[<i> CANNOT HEAR THIS PART </i>]

00:07:32.049 --> 00:07:33.350
...what would it look like to say

00:07:33.350 --> 00:07:39.400
"<i>Y'know what? Being a sister is a crucial part of who I am, and I really want to spread that to the world</i>"

00:07:39.400 --> 00:07:41.552
Or for whatever reason.

00:07:41.552 --> 00:07:42.809
With no apologies.

00:07:42.809 --> 00:07:45.480
I mean, my siblings are amazing, 
I'm obsessed with them.

00:07:45.480 --> 00:07:47.237
No apologies for that.

00:07:47.237 --> 00:07:53.316
So whatever that is for you, the idea is for you to unapologetically express that this week.

00:07:53.316 --> 00:07:57.218
If you wanna leave a comment, if you wanna 
email me I would love to hear about it,

00:07:57.218 --> 00:08:02.570
and if you want a poem blessing 
like the participants in the Institute got,

00:08:02.570 --> 00:08:06.663
distilled from Audre Lorde's "Love Poem", 
you can figure out how to do that,

00:08:06.663 --> 00:08:09.983
either right below this video or at


00:08:09.983 --> 00:08:12.899
summerofourlorde.wordpress.com

00:08:12.899 --> 00:08:15.808
Thank you so much for listening,
for watching,

00:08:15.808 --> 00:08:18.208
sending you much much much much love.

00:08:18.208 --> 00:08:20.890
MWAH! Happy Resurrection Sunday.