Böcker av Audre Lorde

From the self-described 'black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet', these soaring, urgent essays on the power of women, poetry and anger are filled with darkness and light.Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

'I am Black because I come from the earth's insidenow take my word for jewel in the open light.' Impassioned and profound, the poems in Coal showcase Audre Lorde in all her dazzling elegance and multiplicity. Mournful, celebratory, politically conscious, this early collection is a testament to Lorde's beloved and hugely influential lyric voice, which faithfully captures the complex interiority of the self. These timeless poems resonate down the years.

Poets Audre Lorde and Pat Parker first met in 1969; they began exchanging letters regularly five years later. This is a rare opportunity to glimpse inside the minds and friendship of two great twentieth century poets.

Of Coal, the poet and critic Hayden Carruth said, "For us these words indeed are jewels in the open light."

As Marilyn Hacker has written, "Black, lesbian, mother, cancer survivor, urban woman: none of Lorde's selves has ever silenced the others; the counterpoint among them is often the material of her strongest poems."

"Here are the words of some of the women I have been, am being still, will come to be," writes Audre Lorde of this volume, in which she brings together many of the most important poems she has written over the past thirty years.

A complete collection-over 300 poems-from one of this country's most influential poets.