“blessed within my selves”: The Prophetic Visions of Our Lorde

This essay discusses the intellectual and poetic work of Audre Lorde and its significance for contemporary global movements for liberation. My discussion considers Lorde’s theorizing of difference and power, as well as her poetic work, as prophetic interventions within the context of the 1960s to the early 1990s. I argue that Lorde’s intellectual and literary work is the result of a black woman’s embodied experiences within the intersections of many struggles—notably, the ones against racism, sexism, and homophobia. This strategic positionality becomes, as I discuss, the centrality of Lorde’s prophetic vision of collective and inclusive liberation: one that permeates past and current movements for freedom across the Americas, influencing contemporary practices of international solidarity and the formation of black feminist thought. Finally, as a framework, this essay shows that Lorde’s prophetic vision—one that is born within a larger context of black diasporic feminist imaginary—teaches us crucial lessons on the decolonial practices and methods embedded in black women’s intellectual and artistic work