Finding Language: Audre Lorde and the Politics of Voice with Mariah Ivey and Hallie Raikes

presented by More of This: A Creative Learning Community, Artists At Work, and the Center for Black Literature and Culture

Audre Lorde asks us to consider what becomes possible when we transform silence into language — and language into action. In this session, we’ll explore the power of finding, claiming, and speaking the words we have been taught to withhold. Beginning with Lorde’s 1977 speech, “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action,” we’ll bring a selection of contemporary poems into conversation with her work, considering language as a site of truth, survival, resistance, and connection. 

Muraled as a “Keeper of Culture” in downtown Indianapolis, Mariah Ivey is a writer, poet, musician, and curator. An Indianapolis native and current Artists at Work Fellow, her multidisciplinary practice explores language, literature, and curation as tools for healing, connection, and communal care. Ivey holds a B.A. in Africana Studies, an M.A in English Creative Writing and serves as Director of Programs & Artistic Development at the historic Madam Walker Legacy Center. She is also the founder and host of That Peace Open Mic, a monthly show designed to amplify the voices and stories of artists and writers of color.  

Hallie Raikes is the Manager of the Center for Black Literature & Culture at the Central Library location of the Indianapolis Public Library. She holds a B.A. in African and African American Studies and an M.A. in Africology and African American Studies. She is an avid reader, reviewer, and recommender of the Black literary canon through her platform @womanistprose.