When Audre Lorde released her poetry collection Coal in 1976, her status as a groundbreaking Black lesbian feminist poet was cemented for a wider audience. Coal gave voice to Lorde’s personal history and dealings with the many forms of oppression she faced as a Black queer woman, and gave us some of the most beautiful, powerful poetic lines in history.
Related
Fricas’s debut is wonderfully illustrated and buoyant with hope
From the title poem’s ending (“I am Black because I come from the Earth’s inside/ now take my word for jewel in the open light”) to the bombastic poems about love and loss (“Today I heard my heart screeching like a subway train/loudly enough to remind me I was human”), Coal remains a vital literary text, as well as a guideline for writers with an eye toward revolution. This, Lorde seemed to say, is how you do it. This is how you transform the pain of oppression as a blistering inner fire to guide you through a world that will never be as good to you as you deserve.
