From the beginning of her life, Audre Lorde challenged standard meanings of what it meant to be a woman, what it meant to be a lover, what it meant to be black, and what it meant to be a poet. But she also challenged the standard meanings of words, changing her vocabulary to change the context in which she spoke. In this episode, the finale of our trilogy, we discuss Lorde's nonfiction work and essays and how she questioned commonly understood concepts to advocate for social change.

*

Official Canon Fire Website: www.canonfirepodcast.com/ Banner designed by Brittany Baril. Theme song by Alan Hardison, mastered by Nick Cameron.

Warning: This episode contains mention and frank discussion of rape, racism, and violent murder.

Writing during the Civil Rights Movement, the AIDS crisis, and in the aftermath of civil rights abuses and tragedies that had been perpetuating themselves for decades before her work, Audre Lorde managed to confront a harsh world with furious recognition coupled with deep understanding - a feat that reverberates through her continued legacy of activism, social justice, and community outreach.

*

Official Canon Fire Website: www.canonfirepodcast.com/

In this episode we discuss Audre Lorde, a lesbian woman of color who was as bold as she was unapologetic. As a black lesbian woman near-sighted almost to the point of blindness, Lorde faced more civil rights restrictions than could be counted on one hand - and she responded with a honed rage and a practiced compassion that reverberates through her poetic successors even today.

Intentionally ignored by her contemporaries and largely forgotten by history, Aemelia Lanyer demonstrates the invisible influence that women, minorities, and the disenfranchised have been dealing with for centuries. While history remembers little of Lanyer, you can find evidence of her groundbreaking influence in the work of her fellow artists. Lanyer's wit, intelligence, and proto-feminist leanings mirror similar developments in the work of others - and might have even set the stage for William Shakespeare's greatest plays.

*

Official Canon Fire Website: www.canonfirepodcast.com/

Banner designed by Brittany Baril.

Theme song by Alan Hardison, mastered by Nick Cameron.

Writing in the same period as Western canonical greats like Shakespeare, Donne, and Jonson, Aemelia Lanyer was consistently overlooked by her contemporaries and forgotten by later critics and scholars. Lanyer responded to this forced obscurity with an audacious, rebellious indictment of the treatment of women in Early Modern English society - and changed the landscape of English literature in the doing.

*

Official Canon Fire Website: www.canonfirepodcast.com/

Banner designed by Brittany Baril.

Theme song by Alan Hardison, mastered by Nick Cameron.

Working to reclaim her heritage, traditions, and identity amidst the tumultuous changes that indigenous American populations were forced to deal with in the mid-20th century, Joy Harjo became a force herself: a force of artistic, spiritual personhood that refused to allow misconceptions, stereotyping, or oppression to define her.

CW: This episode contains reference to domestic abuse, alcoholism, rape, and genocide.

*

Official Canon Fire Website: www.canonfirepodcast.com/

Banner designed by Brittany Baril.

Theme song by Alan Hardison, mastered by Nick Cameron.

Critically acclaimed but academically overlooked, Joy Harjo's poetry, music, and performance showcase her experience of her Muscogee (Creek) culture. Speaking and writing with a steady, engaging passion, Harjo delves into cultural and personal spaces of trauma, tragedy, and injustice - and uses her art to bring growth, closure, and light to dark places.

CW: This episode contains reference to domestic abuse, alcoholism, rape, and genocide.

*

Official Canon Fire Website: www.canonfirepodcast.com/

Banner designed by Brittany Baril.

Theme song by Alan Hardison, mastered by Nick Cameron.

Writing about Jewish communities post-Holocaust forced Chaim Potok to reckon with a painful, traumatic cultural history that colored the experience of everyone in his life and in his community. This, combined with the advent of Zionism created a space fraught with conflict over the direction that a Jewish future should take. Potok contrasted this division, as always with understanding: never letting anyone forget the common humanity of those in conflict.

*

Official Canon Fire Website: www.canonfirepodcast.com/

Banner designed by Brittany Baril.

Theme song by Alan Hardison, mastered by Nick Cameron.

Jewish novelist Chaim Potok devoted his career as an author to understanding the human condition. Even while his community was wracked by the fallout of the Holocaust and the divisive politics of Zionism, Potok worked to show individuals, no matter their backgrounds or politics, as worthy of respect and compassion - all through stories written about and intended for young people. * Official Canon Fire Website: www.canonfirepodcast.com/ Banner designed by Brittany Baril. Theme song by Alan Hardison, mastered by Nick Cameron.

Anna Akhmatova was forced into obscurity following the Bolshevik Revolution, but even personal threat by Joseph Stalin could not prevent her from producing visceral, challenging poetry that questions the nature of government, communism, and love of one's homeland. * Official Canon Fire Website: www.canonfirepodcast.com/ Banner designed by Brittany Baril. Theme song by Alan Hardison, mastered by Nick Cameron.