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Resurrection Sunday Week 7 Legacy - Hers

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    Hello loved ones, and welcome to week 7
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    of Resurrection Sundays for Audre Lorde.
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    Today the poem that I'm gonna share to you
    is from The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance,
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    Audre Lorde's last published book of poems.
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    And it really has helped me today,
    has meant a lot to me today.
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    I am sending today my closing chapter for
    Gloria Joseph's soon to be epic bio anthology
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    celebrating the life of Audre Lorde
    and talking about how her legacy lives on.
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    And it's something that has been
    such an honour to write,
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    and I also have been, um, just really thinking
    about how to do it justice.
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    So... reading this poem today, 26 times,
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    and looking at the messages in
    every letter of the alphabet that it gives,
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    have been huge for me, and I'm excited
    to share it with you right now.
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    "Legacy - Hers"
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    When love leaps from my mouth
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    cadenced in that Grenada wisdom
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    upon which I first made holy war
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    then I must reassess
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    all my mother’s words
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    or every path I cherish.
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    Like everything else I learned from Linda
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    this message hurtles across still uncalm air
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    silent... tumultuous... freed water
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    descending an imperfect drain.
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    I learn how to die
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    from your many examples
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    cracking the code of your living
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    heroisms... collusions... invisibilities
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    constructing my own
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    book of your last hours
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    how we tried to connect
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    in that bland spotless room
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    one bright Black woman
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    to another...
    bred for endurance... for battle
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    --Island women make good wives
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    whatever happens they’ve seen worse--
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    Your last word to me was wonderful
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    And I am still seeking the rest
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    of that terrible acrostic
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    Mmmm. So, I love that poem.
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    And in The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance, Audre Lorde has this poem about her mother's legacy,
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    she has a poem called "Legacy - Hers",
    and she has a poem called "Inheritance - His".
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    She's really thinking about how can she learn
    from her relationship with her parents,
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    and use it, even at the end of her life,
    to construct her ideas about legacy itself.
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    And so, as we close this year,
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    I know that this poem is really helping me
    be present to what it means to close a year,
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    to get ready to open a new year,
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    without some important people in my life who I love,
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    who I now, in 2013, was able to relate to in body,
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    and in 2014 I'll be able to relate to
    as a legacy bearer, or through legacy.
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    And I want to assign each of you to think about that.
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    For you, how would you name
    the legacy you walk in?
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    Who are the people
    whose legacy you carry with you?
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    And I think that this poem
    is a great model of a love letter back,
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    asking "what did it mean,
    those last words that you said to me?    "
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    Explaining that what you learn has to be questioned,
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    the words that we have have to be questioned
    over and over again.
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    So my assignment to you is to write a letter to someone whose legacy is important to you.
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    And of course, the legacy of Audre Lorde
    continues to be important to all of us.
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    I look forward to being able to give you more detail
    about publication and timeline and everything,
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    for this beautiful book that Dr. Gloria Joseph
    is putting together.
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    And of course, come visit us on
    the School of Our Lorde website:
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    summerofourlorde.wordpress.com
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    and have a beautiful beautiful
    transition of your year.
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    Sending you love.
Title:
Resurrection Sunday Week 7 Legacy - Hers
Description:

Launched on Nov. 17th 2013 on the 21st anniversary of Audre Lorde’s transition from an embodied warrior healer to an ancestral force, this is a weekly series of videos documenting and sharing my process of clarifying survival through a re-immersion in the words of Audre Lorde. To see all the videos so far check out:

http://summerofourlorde.wordpress.com/resurrection-sundays/

This week's poem "Legacy-Hers" is from her last collection of poems. In it she meditates on her critical and changing relationship to her mother's legacy. This poem helped me to finish a long overdue essay on Audre Lorde's legacy and send it to Gloria Joseph for an exciting book project that she is working on. It also helped me to face the end of the year and to prepare to honor the legacy of those who have transitioned this year. Your assignment is to write/think/talk with others about whose legacy makes space for you. What are the legacies that challenge you, affirm you and keep you critical?

Every week as part of my practice of resurrecting Audre Lorde in my life and in our communities I will be making an alphabetical oracle from the weekly survival poem which will consist of up to 26 new poems based on the sacred source text. If you would like to receive a custom poem as a blessing for your journey you can with a donation of your choice to Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind’s School of Our Lorde! summerofourlorde.wordpress.com

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Captions courtesy of the Radical Access Mapping Project, Un-ceded Coast Salish Territories of the Skwxwú7mesh, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.
To learn more, see: http://radicalaccessiblecommunities.wordpress.com/subtitled-videos/
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Video Language:
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Radical Access Mapping Project edited English subtitles for Resurrection Sunday Week 7 Legacy - Hers

English subtitles

Revisions

  • Revision 1 Edited (legacy editor)
    Radical Access Mapping Project
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