Moreover, differences are also homogenized.Īnother major emphasis of Sister Outsider is poetic theory, explored primarily in “An Interview: Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich” and “Poetry is not a Luxury.” The interview with Rich becomes a proving ground for unity in diversity as both women explore their common ground as lesbian poets struggling with voicing their most private concerns while not yet being able to totally trust individuals of other color, political persuasion, or economic status. Lorde makes this communal experience erotic and, by extension, makes other mundane tasks become erotic and, therefore, highly pleasurable. Perhaps the most well-known essay in Sister Outsider is “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power,” an emotional and powerful study of the erotic explicated by Lorde's famous analogy between the World War II practice of mixing yellow food coloring with colorless margarine at home to give the margarine the “proper” popular appearance. Nowhere is this more clearly articulated than in “The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House,”“Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference,” and in “Scratching the Surface, Some Notes on Barriers to Women and Loving.” In a powerful and persuasive manner, Lorde stresses the strengths of empowerment and acceptance as necessary acquisitions. In lieu of remaining an isolato, she stresses the necessity of every individual, group, sect, cult, and movement to strive for unity in such diversity. In essay after essay, Lorde promotes the unity of difference. The quality of these essays is consistently high and the unity is made possible by Lorde's emphasis on differences as a source of strength rather than divisiveness. The subject matter of these essays is remarkably varied, yet homogeneous. These poems and the essays in Sister Outsider stress Lorde's oft-stated theme of continuity, particularly of the geographical and intellectual link between Dahomey, Africa, and her emerging self.
The title Sister Outsider finds its source in her poetry collection The Black Unicorn (1978). These essays explore and illuminate the roots of Lorde's intellectual development and her deep-seated and longstanding concerns about ways of increasing empowerment among minority women writers and the absolute necessity to explicate the concept of difference-difference according to sex, race, and economic status. (1984), a collection of fifteen essays written between 19, gives clear voice to Audre Lorde's literary and philosophical personae.
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