In this collection, Audre Lorde gives us poems that explore "differences as creative tensions, and the melding of past strength/pain with future hope/fear; the present being the vital catalyst, the motivating force―activism."
 
As Marilyn Hacker has written, "Black, lesbian, mother, cancer survivor, urban woman: none of Lorde's selves has ever silenced the others; the counterpoint among them is often the material of her strongest poems."