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Audre Lorde Memorial Held

Memorial Celebrates Lorde’s “SpiritandH er Life”

By Joanna Corman
Staff writer

Members of the bi-college community
gathered together last Friday to honor the
memory and celebrate the life of late poet
Audre Lord.

Lorde, who received an honorary
doctorate degree from Haverford College,
passed away on November 17, 1992 atter a
14-year battle with cancer.

“‘Audre Lorde was and is a member of
our community. She is somebody who
really embodied a lot of the ideals we share
a commitment to in the bi-college
community.... She was areal inspiration to
many of us and continues to be,” said
Haverford Dean Randy Milden.

Haverford senior Isabell Leshko, a strong
force in organizing the memorial,
coordinated it because “‘so many people did
not know who Audre Lorde was. I saw that
asareal shame [considering] how important
her work is.” |

Leshko wanted to “educate people while
celebrating [Lorde’s] spirit and her life.
[Lorde’s] words are extremely powerful and
I wanted other people to hear them.”

A moment of silence and reflection
preceded each speech honoring Lorde. After
Milden spoke, feminist scholar Minnie Bruce
Pratt described what Lorde meant to her.
“Nothing is ever going to.come close to
what Audre meant to me. Every sentence is
connected to something in my life,” she
said. From Lorde, Pratt “learned how art
and truth can spring organically from [her]
life.”

Pratt described Lorde’s writing, “the way
in which her poet’s mind developed the
relation between beings.... She strove to
draw two dissimilar things together,” the
“essence” of metaphor poetry.

Pratt remembered Lorde both as a
teacher, and through teaching Lorde’s work
herself. While Pratt taught, Lorde would
periodically contact her, to let her know she
was aware Of her intellectual pursuits. “I
learned a lot about good teaching from
Lorde’s encouragement,” said Pratt.

She continued, “I saw not how one can
teach didactically, but instead by bringing



Elizabeth Lorde Rollins, right, daughter of poet Audre Lorde, and feminist scholar Minnie
Bruce Pratt at the memorial in Lorde’s honor last week. Photo by Mike Ciul.

people into the body of your life.”

Pratt recollected how her students “were
physically drawn into [Lorde’s] words.
There was a literal physical change by
entering into her work and that her work
demanded that.”

“With her passing, a lot of us feel left in
the landscape, with our ownconsciousness,”
said Pratt. She recalled Lorde as a woman

[who] was not telling the truth for us,
[rather] she told me what could be done and
it was up to me to take responsibility for it.
Audre’s challenge was always, ‘What are
you going to do with your own hand:?,’
“What are you going to do with your own
anger?’ ”

Pratt then recalled an anecdoteconveying
Lorde’s character. After Lorde would speak
to an audience, she would refuse applause
by saying, “Don’t give it to me. I want you
to think. I’m here to do my work, are you
doing yours?”

Bryn Mawr Professor Jane Hedley, who
has taught Lorde’s works for over ten years
honored Lorde. “Tt is an electric experience
having a poem of Audre Lorde’s read in the
classroom,” commented Hedley. Hedley
read an oratory by Lorde rather than a poem
because “her oratory would bring [Lorde]

into the room more for me than a poem.”

Elizabeth Lorde Rollins, Audre Lorde’s
daughter, remembered Lorde last. Rollins
addressed the audience, “I am very touched
by your words and what you read.” She did
not want to talk about the many awards and >
the lives Lorde touched. “No one talks
about the things that she needed, things that
nurtured her, that I believe prolonged her

life.”

“Audre taught me many things,” said
Rollins, one of which “is the will to ie
how far itcan carry you... how itneeds to be
supported.”

Rollins described Lorde as a “brilliant
woman who enjoyed life and knew how to
party.”

During Lorde’s last two years, while
she experienced physical limitations, “she
was still writing, and would party ’til dawn.”

Rollins read some of Lorde’s poems that
will be published this summer, poems she
was working on during the last years of her
life.

The last poem Rollins read, “The Electric
Slide Boogey” ended with a sentence
exemplifying Lorde’s spirit: “It is hard to
relax, to sleep in the middle of life.”
LORDE, continued on page 11.

Gay Pride Week Capped Off With Dance Tonight

By Jeff Beringer
Staff writer

“Lesbians Have Bad Hairdays”

“T wouldn’t have come to Haverford if I
were a lesbian,” said Haverford first-year
student Ana Maria Sencovici, “I would have
gone to Bryn Mawr.”

“Bisexuals Get Married.”

“I haven’t really talked about
{homosexual issues] since the sexual
or? 2ntation peer awareness group,” said first
year student Gretta Doctoroff,

“Gay Men Eat Pizza.”

“Homosexuality is just something very
distant to most Haverford students,” said
BGALA (Bisexual Gay and Lesbian
Alliance) member and first-year student
Kathy Danek. “It’s just not a part of their
lives.”

In an effort to deal with the relative
invisibility of lesbian/gay/bisexual students
at Haverford, BGALA members late Sunday,
under the cloak of darkness, in an action

they have dubbed “vampire night,” posted
small colored paper triangles with messages
similar to the three above all over the campus.

Besides being amusing and provocative,
the triangles served as a reminder that
homosexual and bisexual issues exist at
Haverford and are not being addressed. The
sightof the triangles Monday morning, April
5, was the first indication to students that
BGALA was christening their annual

_ LesBiGay Pride Week celebration, which

has been ongoing this week.

The final event in the celebration is at
10:00 p.m. tonight: the BGALA sponsored
dance “Club Heaven,” a Tri-college new
wave Club style bash invitees to which
include all Tri-college students (straight or
queer), as well as students from colleges
throughout the area, as near as University of
Pennsylvania, Eastern, and Temple, and as
far away as Penn State and Princeton.

Sophomore and BGALA member May
Mon Post who is organizing the dance said,
“All of us in BGALA wanted to have a

dance party. We’ve been doing a lot of
political stuff, and we thought a dance party
would be more social. It will be a fun,

PRIDE WEEK, continued on page 11.