In The Black Unicorn, Audre Lorde reaches across 300 years of black diaspora and reclaims African history and mythology as a basis for her imagery about women; and she does so without succumbing to naïve nostalgia or vapid exoticism….

One of the stereotypes of Afro-American women is mammymatriarch, so the poet who writes about black women and children risks cliché. Lorde has consistently and brilliantly met this challenge….

At the core of ["Coniagui Women"] is a traditional Africa remote from our experiences, but Lorde's straightforward language and control simultaneously sets us at ease and reveals successive levels of mystery….

["Woman"] reflects affirmation of woman-to-woman bonding and rescues the nurturing aspects of women's lives from the negative connotation of mindless fecundity….

Audre Lorde is a brilliant and honest poet, and while no poem in this volume touches me as the earlier Lorde poems do, The Black Unicorn should be...