SOURCE: "Richer for Their Bitter Edge," in The American Book Review, Vol. 15, No. 4, October-November 1993, p. 15.

In the following review, Parson-Nesbitt traces the development of Lorde's poetry as evidenced by the selections in Undersong: Chosen Poems Old and New (Revised).

Audre Lorde wrote, "Poetry is not a luxury." Her writing testifies to the truth of that statement. To live in the second half of the twentieth century, with its daily psychic and physical violence, we need her poems for guidance and sanity. Lorde was Black, lesbian, a mother, the daughter of Grenadian immigrants, and a poet of fierce and expansive talent. With characteristic courage and stubborness, she insisted on claiming all parts of her complex identity as necessary and whole. Her adopted African name, Gamba Adisa: "Warrior—She Who Makes Her Meaning Known," expresses Lorde's commitment to both political struggle and writing, rejecting any separation between the two. She...