The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

"Lorde's poems, urgent and intimate, focus on the ordinary and the extraordinary, a range of subjects including love, death and dying, and police killings of black people with impunity."

"Readers primarily familiar with these works will find a compelling selection of her verse, as well as some of her more personal writing about her childhood and about the cancer that would eventually lead to her death at age fifty-eight ...The anthology lacks any of Lorde's notable public conversations, like her famous talk—published in Essence in 1984—with James Baldwin about what Black men fail to realize about the struggles of Black women; still, the new book is a good place to begin, particularly for readers yet to discover Lorde as a poet ..."

"The Selected Works of Audre Lorde, edited and introduced by Roxane Gay, arrives at an especially interesting moment, however."

"The sublime choices of Lorde's poetry include the haunting 'Martha,' written during a former lover's recuperation after a car accident, and 'Father Son and Holy Ghost,' which beautifully records a childhood memory of her father returning from work, 'Misty from the worlds business/ Massive and silent as the whole day's wish.' Readers new to Lorde's work couldn't ask for a better introduction, and those already familiar will find this an ideal collection of her greatest hits."