As a poet with multiple marginalized identities, Audre Lorde used art as a reflection of her life as a queer Black woman. Her works exemplify the use of art as activism, as she often wrote for civil rights, LGBTQ acceptance, anti war, and women’s rights. Lorde’s poem “Hanging Fire” has resonated with me since I first read it. Like the narrator, I was 14 when I read it and was thinking about my own mortality. At the time, however, I did not realize just how many layers there were to Lorde’s poetry. Even re-reading the poem after choosing it for analysis in my English class, I was unsure of how to approach my annotation and eventual explanation to an audience until I spent time learning about Lorde’s life. Researching her has made me realize that understanding her life is essential to enjoying her poetry to its fullest extent, and deeply reading her poetry allows one to understand Lorde as much as possible. I have never felt so strongly connected to a writer or to a collection of poems as I do with Lorde. I am in awe each time I read any of her works but “Hanging Fire” always has and always will come out on top. Lorde so skillfully puts to words the numerous feelings I have experienced as I go through some of the same life changes; her goal of relating to and teaching others was definitely achieved with me. Through my research, I am able to better understand themes that Lorde has written about when they appear in the works of other writers, specifically other Black female writers. Though intimacy is not a facet of Lorde’s sexuality and womanhood that I read much about in comparison to other themes, writing about it was a large part of how she empowered herself and other women. When reading Ntozake Shange’s “at 4:30 a.m.,” I could see the parallels between how she portrays Black female sensuality and how Lorde discusses its nuances. Both women acknowledge the struggle of Black women embracing feelings of divinity while being constrained by systems of oppression that force them to be shameful. I found Maya Angelou’s use of metaphor to describe oppression and the Black experience in “Caged Bird” to be similar to Lorde’s “Good Mirrors Are Not Cheap.” The latter relates a bad mirror maker to how society is structured to make marginalized groups negatively perceive themselves. In both poems, the metaphor removes the issues from invisible systems and instead gives them realistic imagery to make the issues more tangible for those who have not experienced them firsthand. The most important part of Lorde’s writing, especially her poetry, to me is that it does not and should not solely exist within artistic spaces. Her work is meant to be analyzed intellectually and artistically because she was able to blend the two spheres seamlessly. Her art cannot be discussed without considering her intellectualism and vice versa, just like one must consider her life or writing to understand the other. Lorde truly embodies intersectionality. Every part of who she is as an artist, an academic, and a person requires one to consider every part of her and her work to wholeheartedly internalize the message she strove to always convey: complete liberation for every person.