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We've Got a Zine for That: Audre Lorde

Every month we highlight a different theme that can be studied or enjoyed using our zine library. This month's WGaZfT is Audre Lorde. 1990s (and later) zinesters love(d) to quote her.

zine excerpt that reads, "the work of the poet w/in each of us is to envision what has not yet been and to work w/ every fiber of who we are to make the real pursuit of those visions irresistable" -- audre lorde — excerpt from Electric Femme #2 by Qianya Martin (whom we've attempted to contact for permission to share, without success)

A catalog search on < zines audre lorde > yields 28 results (as of August 20, 2024). The zines quote Lorde to make a point, support research, or just because the zine makers admire her.

Zinesters, undergrads, and scholars might draw inferences from the context of the quotes and discussions of Ms. Lorde, who we'd like to remind you, having earned her Masters degree in Library Service at Columbia University, worked as a librarian.

In Picklejar, the authors write about having scarred bodies, including an excerpt from Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde and getting nipple piercings.

In Cuss, 18-year-old women's college student Shannon free writes about coming out to her father, wanting to cry, the passing of Audre Lorde, desire, celebrity crushes, and partying with her friends as a nondrinker.

Whirling Cervix contains a comic about the appropriate uses of apostrophes, two recipes for tofu, an Audre Lorde quotation, and radical cheerleader cheers.

A prospective Barnard student, writing probably in the early 2000s shares that there are ways to assert the right to choose, a piece about Audre Lorde, and a critique of the deceptive notion of "girl power" in the zine Strike.

Homos in Herstory 1970s edition has this page

text at the top of the page reads "Queer women of color like Audre Lorde,.Gloria .Anzaldua, and Chen-ieM oraga re-v.-Totfee minism through their own • experience, incorporating the complexities of race and class into their lesbian/feminist analysis." It is followed by a panel where a Black man's speech bubble says, "You're taking jobs away from Black men." A Black woman, who might be Audre Lorde replies "No, we need more jobs for Black men *and* women." Under the art is more text: "In discussions around...

Acadyke also quotes Sister Outsider

zine pages that reads "Though I could go on and on about 'queering the academy,' Audre Lorde explains _why_ the valuing of emotional knowledge is SO important" / collage of wildflowers / "When we live outside ourselves, and by that I mean on external directives only rather than from our internal knowledge and needs, when we live away from those erotic guides from within ourselves, then our lives are limited by external and alien forms, and we conform to the needs of a structure that is not based on human...

Finally this vulnerable page from Unvarnished from about 1997

the zine page shows a hand holding a round something that reads "Nobody Knows I'm a [the word "lesbian," presumably, is obscured by the fingers closing around the disc]. More text "And of course I am afraid," below that "because the transformation of silence into language & action is an act of self-revelation, & that always seems fraught with danger." -- Audre Lorde

You may notice that some of the zines referenced on this page are not listed among the 28 current catalog results. You never know when Audre Lorde will show up in a zine!

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