The book is composed of essays and talks by Lorde,[3][4] including the following:
- "Notes from a Trip to Russia;" edited journal entries from Lorde's two-week trip to Russia in 1976, as invited American observer to the African-Asian Writers conference sponsored by the Union of Soviet Writers.
- "Poetry is Not a Luxury;" first published first in Chrysalis: A Magazine of Female Culture, no. 3 in 1977. It asserts that poetry is a valuable tool for social and personal interrogation and transformation, and acts as a bridge from unnamed feelings to words to action.[11]
- "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action;" talk delivered at the Modern Language Association's "Lesbian Literature Panel" in Chicago, Illinois, December 28, 1977. It was also published in Sinister Wisdom in 1978 and The Cancer Journals (Spinsters, Ink, San Francisco) in 1980. "Transformation" examines the factors that contribute to the silence of some and the actions of others, commenting on voice, power, violence, sexism, verbal abuse, shame, and hostile social environments.[12] The talk draws from Lorde's marginalized positionalities and experiences with breast cancer.[12]
- "Scratching the Surface: Some Notes on Barriers to Women and Loving;" first published in The Black Scholar, in 1978. It discusses distrust and hostility within relationships between black women and black men and women.[13]
- "Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power;" delivered at the Fourth Berkshire Conference on the History of Women at Mount Holyoke College on August 25, 1978. It was first published as a pamphlet by Out & Out Books, and later by Kore Press. Lorde uses this essay to posit the erotic as an emotionally charged mode of perception to inform new ways of understanding experience.[14]
- "Sexism: An American Disease in Blackface;" first published as "The Great American Disease" in the May–June issue of The Black Scholar in 1979. "Sexism" was written in response to "The Myth of Black Macho: A Response to Angry Black Feminists" by Robert Staples in a previous issue of The Black Scholar. It articulates the threat patriarchal hegemonic masculinity poses to Black men and women and respect and solidarity within the Black community.[15]
- "An Open Letter to Mary Daly;" a letter in response to Daly's Gyn/Ecology, challenging her exclusion of women of color and white feminism in general.[16]
- "Man Child: A Black Lesbian Feminist's Response;" first published in Conditions: Four in 1979. It discusses the challenges of raising a son as a lesbian mother in an interracial relationship in the United States.[17]
- "An Interview: Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich;" was first published in Signs in the summer of 1981. It is edited from three hours of audio tapes recorded on August 30, 1979, in Montague, Massachusetts. The interview was commissioned by Marilyn Hacker, guest editor of Woman Poet: The East.
- "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House;" developed from comments at "The Personal and the Political Panel" at the Second Sex Conference on September 29, 1979, in New York. It includes comments on how practices of exclusion, absence, invisibility, silence, and tokenism within feminist theory discredit feminism and calls for a transformation of the use of power and difference between women.[18]
- "Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference;" a paper delivered at the Copeland Colloquium at Amherst College in April 1980. The paper rejects difference as a source of domination, and reclaims differences between individuals and communities as resources for creative social change.[19]
- "The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism;" was a keynote presentation at the National Women's Studies Association Conference in Storrs, Connecticut, in June 1981. It addresses the experiences of women of color within sexist, homophobic societies in relation to the systems that try to deny and blame oppressed communities for their anger.[20]
- "Learning from the 60s;" from a talk delivered at Harvard University in February 1982 for Malcolm X Weekend. It challenges readers to analyze how their practices reflect their ideologies and stresses the importance of working towards mutual liberation from multiple systems of oppression.[21]
- "Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred, and Anger;" an abbreviated version was first published in essence, vol. 14, no.6 in October 1983. It describes Lorde's early experiences with negative white reactions to her Blackness and conveys the harmful impacts of internalized racism and sexism on self-esteem and relationships between Black women.[22]
- "Grenada Revisited: An Interim Report;" written while book was typeset, as a final-hour inclusion.[10][5] The essay recounts the condition of Grenada from her visit there after its invasion by the United States. It also serves as a critique of United States imperialist neocolonial foreign policy.[10]
