How bell hooks and Audre Lorde shaped my writing

Topics mentioned: Black History Month, identity and mental health

About: Amy shares how authors bell hooks and Audre Lorde shaped her voice, exploring race, feminism and culture for Black History Month.

Black women authors became formative to me in my late teens and early twenties. Admittedly, my love for reading cultural books only occurred once I started my Politics degree in 2021. It marked the beginning of a lifelong love for explorative and expansive reading. I wanted to discover more about my own race, about gender, and about culture. As a writer, I’ve learned how to be more open-minded and curious about the world around me. For Black History Month, I have decided to showcase two Black women authors who have paved the way for discourse on feminism, race, and culture, and have inspired me in my own work as a writer and poet.

Firstly, I’d like to mention an author I was introduced to in my final year of university: bell hooks. As I began to write my dissertation, I stumbled down the rabbit hole of cultural feminist theory. I had heard of bell hooks but her work was alien to me. I was moved by her choice to not capitalise her name. It struck me as odd at first, but as I learned more about her reasoning, how she sought to de-emphasise her identity from her work, it occurred to me that she put her findings, her beliefs, her opinions before herself. She was a selfless writer, and I admire that about her. It’s hard to remove myself from what I write; everything feels so personal but oftentimes, I find myself coming back to bell hooks and her persistence to practising self-detachment. It’s a quality I aspire to one day embody in my own work.

Born Gloria Jean Watkins, hooks revolutionised how women, in particularly Black women could access feminism: through strengthening the bonds with women in their own circles, through self-empowerment, through questioning the maternal and feminine “instincts” that had been ingrained in them through birth, and by detaching from the patriarchal conditions they operated under. Moreover, hooks was an advocate not just for individuality but for community.

I realised through reading bell hooks that I needed to expand my worldview and become more critical of the norms and accepted structures that existed around me. Her compassion and words that sought to heal drew me to All About Love: New Visions (1999). Truthfully, her writing allowed me to wade through the barriers of self-doubt and self-criticism I had faced when writing such personal poetry.

Another author who I deeply admire is Audre Lorde.

This summer I bought her book, Sister Outsider (1984). It was in a quaint town (Haugesund) in Norway that I stumbled across this baby’s clothing boutique with a bookstore above it. The shelves were laced with ivy and the cultural/feminist texts on display were incredibly vast. I was truly in my element! Audre Lorde was in my author TBR for weeks; Sister Outsider was a book that one of my dear friends had recommended. For the next few weeks, I slowly devoured the book, writing down all the unfamiliar words into my notes app with definitions. It’s true that Lorde writes with persistence and with integrity.

Her collation of essays and speeches moved me. It was as if she had reached inside my brain and put my thoughts into words. I felt understood. As a Black woman, and as a feminist, she examined the ways in which racism, sexism and power imbalances impacted her from a young age through to her adult life. Some parts were difficult to read but I felt I had a duty to persevere. Her words evoked such confidence within me to write with more fearlessness and openness.

Both bell hooks and Audre Lorde have given me the courage to question the social structures that exist in the world that continue to perpetuate sexism and racism. I now feel more confident to speak up and be more selfless in my life. Especially as a writer, I feel more emboldened to use my experiences, my opinions, and the works of other writers to tell my own story. And my curiosity and interest in reading more expansive works by other Black women authors has only deepened.