Marathon Reading of Work by Audre Lorde & Adrienne Rich

The Lesbian Herstory Archives Announces Marathon Reading of Work by Audre Lorde & Adrienne Rich  Nov. 17, 2012 Brooklyn, NY – The Lesbian Herstory Archives is pleased to announce a marathon reading in celebration of the legacy of Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich, November 17, 2012, 12noon- 12midnight. 

THE NYCLWG WILL BE READING FROM 6:00PM to 7:00PM

 Full information is available online:
 

http://www.lesbianherstoryarchives.org/marathonreading2012.html

The date marks the year of Adrienne Richʼs death and the 20th anniversary of Audre Lordeʼs passing. This event honors the life and work of Lorde and Rich and the ongoing dialogue they shared. Their work and presence as poets, theorists, activists and teachers has inspired decades of anti-racist, feminist, and lesbian feminist thought and activism. Both Lorde and Rich were committed supporters of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, and the Archives hold many of their manuscripts, personal papers, oral histories, and photographs.

We invite participants to read from the work of Lorde and Rich, and to share their own responses, writing, and memories. Recordings of their speeches and the conversations they shared will be played, film footage will be shown, and images and objects from the Archives will be on display.

Co-sponsoring organizations and/or participants to date include:

Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice
Belladonna Series
Black Women's Blueprint
brooklyn boihood
Brooklyn College LGBTA
Callen Lorde Community Health Center
In the Flesh Magazine
Queer Memoir/Kelli Dunham
Rivers of Honey
SAGE: Senior Action in a Gay Environment

To honor Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich's commitment to the Lesbian Herstory Archives we are making our own commitment to the Archives and ask others to join us. To contribute the fundraising campaign in support of the Marathon Reading and the work of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, please click below:
http://www.crowdrise.com/lesbianherstoryarchivesreading/fundraiser/lesbianherstorymarathon

Audre Lorde (February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992)

In one of her most often quoted essays, Lorde stated: “Those of us who stand outside the
circle of this society's definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in
the crucibles of difference—those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who
are older—know that survival is not an academic skill…For the master's tools will never
dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game,
but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.”

When then-Governor Mario Cuomo named her New York Stateʼs Poet Laureate in 1991, he said of Lorde:

“Her imagination is charged by a sharp sense of racial injustice and cruelty, of sexual prejudice…She cries out against it as the voice of indignant humanity. Audre Lorde is the voice of the eloquent outsider who speaks in a language that can reach and touch people everywhere.”

Adrienne Rich (May 16, 1929 – March 27, 2012)

In a 1997 letter written to Jane Alexander, then-chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, after Rich refused to accept the National Medal for the Arts, Rich wrote: "There is no simple formula for the relationship of art to justice. But I do know that art—in my own case the art of poetry—means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of power which holds it hostage." Earlier, in her 1987 poem, Dreamwood, Rich wrote: "...she would recognize that poetry/isnʼt revolution but a way of knowing/why it must come."

The scholar Deborah Pope wrote of Rich: "There is no writer of comparable influence and achievement in so many areas of the contemporary women's movement as the poet and theorist Adrienne Rich. Over the years, hers has become one of the most eloquent, provocative voices on the politics of sexuality, race, language, power, and women's culture."

PRESS INFORMATION

For interviews or additional information, please contact event organizers: Alexis Clements
(alexisclements@gmail.com); Shawn(ta) Smith (shawntasmith@gmail.com); or Flavia Rando
(frando@earthlink.net)

EVENT INFORMATION  

The reading is open to the public, all are welcome. Reservations or registration are not required. Suggested donations will be collected at the door ($5-10), but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Date & Time: Saturday, November 17, 2012, from 12noon - 12midnight

THE NYCLWG WILL BE READING FROM 6:00PM to 7:00PM

Location: The Lesbian Herstory Archives, 484 14th Street, Brooklyn, New York 11215

Event URL: http://www.lesbianherstoryarchives.org/