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This event is free and open to the public, but registration is encouraged. Please register HERE. This event takes place at the Auburn Avenue Research Library, 101 Auburn Ave NE, Atlanta, GA 30303.As part of Charis' 50th birthday year celebration, we welcome home Charis beloved, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, to celebrate the launch of her genre-breaking biography of Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet Audre Lorde, Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde. Gumbs, as one of this generation's greatest writers, offers an interdimensional work of witnessing for one of the greatest writers of the last generation, and in doing so, she brings to life an Audre Lorde rarely glimpsed even by devoted fans. Gumbs will be in conversation with Southerners On New Ground (SONG) co-director, Carlin Rushing at the Auburn Avenue Research Library for this celebration, which is co-sponsored by ZAMI NOBLA and SONG (Southerners On New Ground).
In Survival Is a Promise, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, the first researcher to explore the full depths of Lorde’s manuscript archives, illuminates the eternal life of Lorde. Her life and work become more than a sound bite or a snippet of poetry; they become a cosmic force, teaching us the grand contingency of life together on earth.
Lorde’s understanding of survival was not simply about getting through to the other side of oppression or being resilient in the face of cancer. It was about the total stakes of what it means to be in relationship with a planet in transformation. Possibly the focus on Lorde’s quotable essays, to the neglect of her complex poems, has led us to ignore her deep engagement with the natural world, the planetary dynamics of geology, meteorology, and biology. For her, ecological images are not simply metaphors but rather literal guides to how to be of earth on earth, and how to survive—to live the ethics that a Black feminist lesbian warrior poetics demands.
We can think of no better duo--Alexis and Audre-- to usher us into our birthday season of imagining how our feminist future may be born from the seeds of our past and present. Join us to take part in this homecoming and celebrate with us again the first week in November, the 2nd and the 9th, as we launch our next 50 years of queer feminist movement building.
Alexis Pauline Gumbs is the author of several works of poetry and of Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Animals, which won a Whiting Writers' Award in 2022. In 2023, she won a Windham Campbell Prize for her poetry. She lives in Durham, North Carolina.
Carlin Rushing joined Southerners On New Ground (SONG)’s staff as Regional Membership Lead in 2018, after having co-built the Nashville SONG chapter and iterated on our grief and spirit care organizing. Carlin’s work experience involved having one foot in the academy and the other in local organizing and advocacy, including working as a research fellow experimenting with methods for doing racial justice informed by Black queer theology and ethics, and as a project director for an HIV/AIDS intervention program in Nashville. A graduate of Spelman College and Vanderbilt University Divinity School, Carlin has also served as an adjunct professor at American Baptist College and Fisk University. At her core, Carlin values family, faith, and believes that liberation in our lifetime is possible. Unapologetically Black and Southern, Carlin is a lover of the Black women’s literary tradition, all things percussion and rural North Carolina sunsets.
About the Organizations:
ZAMI NOBLA headquartered in Atlanta, is the leading Advocacy organization dedicated to empowering Black lesbians over the age of 40. With active chapters in Georgia and North Carolina and a robust national membership, we prioritize advocacy alongside community organizing and community-action research. We are committed to forging a strong collective voice and advocating for the rights of Black lesbians in our communities and beyond.
Southerners on New Ground (SONG) is a home for LGBTQ liberation across all lines of race, class, abilities, age, culture, gender, and sexuality in the South. SONG builds, sustains, and connects a Southern regional base of LGBTQ people in order to transform the region through strategic projects and campaigns developed in response to the current conditions in our communities. SONG builds this movement through leadership development, intersectional analysis, and organizing.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, 101 Auburn Ave NE,Atlanta, Georgia, United States
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