Pat Parker and Audre Lorde: February 7, 1986

Frances Phillips, director of the Poetry Center at San Francisco State University, announces forthcoming Poetry Center events and introduces Pat Parker and Audre Lorde, who each read twice in alternation. Pat Parker reads "maybe i should have been a teacher," and "legacy," a poem for her daughter, both from Jonestown & other madness. She comments on political poetry and reads "Where Will You Be?" from Movement in Black, and then follows with a chapter from a novel, called "Mama and the Hogs," which would remain uncollected until the publication of The Complete Works of Pat Parker (A Midsummer Night's Press, 2016). Audre Lorde takes the stage, greeting the audience, among other citations, on behalf of the women of South Africa suffering in their resistance against the white rule of the apartheid state. She announces that everything she is reading today is from her forthcoming book, Our Dead Behind Us. She reads, "Sisters In Arms," "To the Poet Who Happens to be Black, and the Black Poet Who Happens to be a Woman," and "Stations" She tells a story of reading Essence magazine in a very white Switzerland, and reads "A Question of Essence." She reflects on the story of Eleanor Bumpurs, shot and killed by New York City police during an eviction, and reads "For the Record," in Bumpurs' memory. Lorde then reads "Outlines," dedicated to her partner, Frances Clayton. Pat Parker returns with "one thanksgiving day," and "my brother," from Jonestown & other madness. She introduces poems about love, starting with an untitled poem that begins "Let me come to you naked...," and continuing to "From Deep Within," both from Movement in Black, and "aftermath," a poem for her partner, Marty Dunham, from JonestownShe tells stories from her early life as a newly out butch lesbian, and reads "My Lady Ain't No Lady," followed by "For Audre," a poem dedicated to Audre Lorde, both poems from Movement in Black. Audre Lorde remarks on knowing Pat Parker for so long, then introduces and reads "Holographs," followed by "There Are No Honest Poems About Dead Women," "Generation III," "Never to Dream of Spiders," and "Dreams." She closes with "Call," which she introduces with an anecdote about her fascination with the Holy Ghost. All poems are from Our Dead Behind Us.