That’s how I found out, again through experience, that poetry is not Play-Doh. You can’t take a poem and keep re-forming it. It is itself, and you ha… - Audre Lorde

One of the most basic Black survival skills is the ability to change, to metabolize experience, good or ill, into something that is useful, lasting, effective. Four hundred years of survival as an endangered species has taught most of us that if we intend to live, we had better become fast learners.

For Black women as well as Black men, it is axiomatic that if we do not define ourselves for ourselves, we will be defined by others — for their use and to our detriment. The development of self-defined Black women, ready to explore and pursue our power and interests within our communities, is a vital component in the war for Black liberation.

Difference is that raw and powerful connection from which our personal power is forged.