Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde

by Alexis Pauline Gumbs

Overview

"[A] scintillating tour de force . . . in a free-ranging style as distinctive as its subject . . . Forgoing the strictures and linearity of traditional biography, Gumbs enlivens her narrative with unconventional flourishes that in lesser hands might feel like a gimmick but here come across as revelation . . . Gumbs is a master stylist with a knack for writing sentences at once direct and expansive (“The scale of the life of the poet is the scale of the universe”). This is a feast for the intellect—and the soul." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Gumbs, one of our great poets, has delivered not only a masterful biography of Audre Lorde but a revolution in what a biography can be. Whether you only know Lorde through her most famous quotes or if you’ve read everything she wrote a thousand times, there is something new and exciting here for you. Structurally playful, deeply researched, vibrantly felt, it’s a masterwork all around." —LitHub

A bold, innovative biography that offers a new understanding of the life, work, and enduring impact of Audre Lorde.

We remember Audre Lorde as an iconic writer, a quotable teacher whose words and face grace T-shirts, nonprofit annual reports, and campus diversity-center walls. But even those who are inspired by Lorde’s teachings on “the creative power of difference” may be missing something fundamental about her life and work, and what they can mean for us today.

Lorde’s understanding of survival was not simply about getting through to the other side of oppression or being resilient in the face of cancer. It was about the total stakes of what it means to be in relationship with a planet in transformation. Possibly the focus on Lorde’s quotable essays, to the neglect of her complex poems, has led us to ignore her deep engagement with the natural world, the planetary dynamics of geology, meteorology, and biology. For her, ecological images are not simply metaphors but rather literal guides to how to be of earth on earth, and how to survive—to live the ethics that a Black feminist lesbian warrior poetics demands.

In Survival Is a Promise, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, the first researcher to explore the full depths of Lorde’s manuscript archives, illuminates the eternal life of Lorde. Her life and work become more than a sound bite; they become a cosmic force, teaching us the grand contingency of life together on earth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374603281
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	08/20/2024
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	528
Sales rank:	811,001
File size:	13 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Alexis Pauline Gumbs is the author of several works of poetry and of Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Animals, which won a Whiting Writers' Award in 2022. In 2023, she won a Windham Campbell Prize for her poetry. She lives in Durham, North Carolina.

Editorial Reviews

★ 06/24/2024

This scintillating tour de force from poet Gumbs (Undrowned) traces the life of feminist poet Audre Lorde (1934–1992) in a free-ranging style as distinctive as its subject. Among other topics, Gumbs discusses Lorde’s upbringing in Harlem amid rampant police violence, her conflicted feelings about teaching literature to cops at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in the 1970s, and her poetry’s exploration of the relationship between individuals and their environment. Highlighting formative figures in the poet’s life, Gumbs explores how the memory of Lorde’s first love, who killed herself when she and Lorde were teenagers, haunted Lorde’s writing for decades, and contends that psychologist Frances Clayton, Lorde’s long-term partner, brought a stabilizing influence to the poet’s personal life. Forgoing the strictures and linearity of traditional biography, Gumbs enlivens her narrative with unconventional flourishes that in lesser hands might feel like a gimmick but here come across as revelation. (A chapter comprised almost entirely of questions pondering how Lorde made sense of the racist children’s literature she read in her youth calls attention to the shortcomings of the archival record and imagination’s inescapable role in reconstructing history.) Gumbs is a master stylist with a knack for writing sentences at once direct and expansive (“The scale of the life of the poet is the scale of the universe”). This is a feast for the intellect—and the soul. Agent: Tanya McKinnon, McKinnon Literary. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"[A] scintillating tour de force . . . in a free-ranging style as distinctive as its subject . . . Forgoing the strictures and linearity of traditional biography, Gumbs enlivens her narrative with unconventional flourishes that in lesser hands might feel like a gimmick but here come across as revelation . . . Gumbs is a master stylist with a knack for writing sentences at once direct and expansive (“The scale of the life of the poet is the scale of the universe”). This is a feast for the intellect—and the soul." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A celebration of a tireless advocate . . . Stars, hurricanes, and even whale songs feature in a narrative notable for lyrical prose and unabashed admiration . . . Gumbs offers thoughtful analyses of Lorde’s poems, as well as the pressures and pleasures of her life: friends and lovers; marriage to a white gay man; motherhood; divorce; and recurring cancer . . . A defiant woman sensitively and incisively portrayed." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“[A] sublime biography . . . An inventive and thorough look into Lorde’s work and life that illustrates how truly impactful [Lorde’s] power was and continues to be . . .This is an elegant portrait of a revered and beloved icon." —Booklist (starred review)

"Lorde has found the perfect interlocutor. Gumbs’ writing is multilayered, poetic and beautiful, making this book more than a biography. It’s a meeting of two minds . . . Survival Is a Promise bears an important and hopeful message for us all: Survival is a communal act of care." —BookPage (starred review)

"Gumbs, one of our great poets, has delivered not only a masterful biography of Audre Lorde but a revolution in what a biography can be. Whether you only know Lorde through her most famous quotes or if you’ve read everything she wrote a thousand times, there is something new and exciting here for you. Structurally playful, deeply researched, vibrantly felt, it’s a masterwork all around." —LitHub

"An award-winning poet, writer, feminist and activist in her own right, Gumbs is among the first researchers to delve into Lorde's manuscript archives. The resulting book highlights the late author's commitment to interrogating what it means to survive on this planet—and how Lorde's radical understanding of ecology can guide us today." —Erika Taylor, NPR

“Alexis Pauline Gumbs has been a kindred keeper of Audre Lorde’s lesbian-warrior-poet legacy for nearly two decades. This long overdue, and yet right-on-time biography of the Lorde caresses and transgresses the limits of genre, to care for all the women and girls that Audre Lorde ever was or hoped to be. Nobody tends to Black girls’ stories like Alexis P. Gumbs, who takes Black women deadly rigorously seriously. This book is a study in mastery of forms, with the kind of sacred irreverence that makes clear who the real geniuses always were. I read this book and could hear the Lorde saying, ‘and it was good.’” —Brittney Cooper, author of the New York Times bestseller Eloquent Rage

“Survival is a Promise is a lightning strike of a biography on The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde. It is poetic in form, political in scope, and revelatory in understanding Lorde’s divine relationship to the Earth as an ecological thinker. Alexis Pauline Gumbs has created a community of poetic ancestors including June Jordan, Adrienne Rich, and Fannie Lou Harmer, now eternal sisters with whom she stands alongside in a circle of relationships. Gumbs describes the work of Audre Lorde as ‘a Black archive of buried photosynthesis.’ In her hands, it is pure light in the vitality of the struggle. This singular volume is a ‘force field of love’ full of prophetic dreaming animating not only what is possible but necessary. Power lives in this book. Chapter by stunning chapter, this spiritual biography made me want to be braver in voice and spirit.” —Terry Tempest Williams, Writer-in-Residence, Harvard Divinity School

“Only Alexis Pauline Gumbs could have written Audre Lorde’s life story in seven dimensions. She is Lorde’s spiritual daughter, and Survival is a Promise is no mere biography—it is a communion, an ancestral divination, a long intimate walk where history, poetry, politics, and wisdom are passed to a new generation.”—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination

From the Publisher

★ 2024-06-11
A celebration of a tireless advocate.

Gumbs, a queer Black feminist poet, pays homage to Audre Lorde (1934-1992), drawing on her subject’s poetry, published prose, and the trove of archival sources—including journals and her own hair—that Lorde donated to Spelman College. Responding to Lorde’s evocation of nature in her works, Gumbs describes her book as a “cosmic biography where the dynamics of the planet and the universe are never separate from the life of any being.” Stars, hurricanes, and even whale songs feature in a narrative notable for lyrical prose and unabashed admiration. Disability shaped Lorde’s childhood, notes the author. She didn’t speak until she was 5, and she stuttered when she finally did speak; in addition, she was visually impaired. Her parents, Caribbean immigrants, were strict. Lorde recalled “constant and unpredictable punishment” but also her father’s reverence for books, which nurtured her love for reading. She tested into the prestigious Hunter High School, where she found her first love; when she took her own life, Lorde was devastated. After graduating, although she won a scholarship, her family couldn’t afford to pay tuition, so she worked her way through Hunter College, which was free, spent a year at the University of Mexico, and continued on to Columbia’s School of Library Service. Gumbs offers thoughtful analyses of Lorde’s poems, as well as the pressures and pleasures of her life: friends and lovers; marriage to a white gay man; motherhood; divorce; and recurring cancer. Her most enduring relationship was with Black feminist scholar Gloria Joseph. The first Black faculty member in the English department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Lorde subsequently taught poetry at Hunter College. Throughout a storied career, her commitment to Black feminist communities—and to speaking out against injustice, racism, and oppression—was unwavering.

A defiant woman sensitively and incisively portrayed.

Kirkus Reviews