In The Black Unicorn, Audre Lorde reaches across 300 years of black diaspora and reclaims African history and mythology as a basis for her imagery about women; and she does so without succumbing to naïve nostalgia or vapid exoticism….

One of the stereotypes of Afro-American women is mammymatriarch, so the poet who writes about black women and children risks cliché. Lorde has consistently and brilliantly met this challenge….

At the core of ["Coniagui Women"] is a traditional Africa remote from our experiences, but Lorde's straightforward language and control simultaneously sets us at ease and reveals successive levels of mystery….

["Woman"] reflects affirmation of woman-to-woman bonding and rescues the nurturing aspects of women's lives from the negative connotation of mindless fecundity….

Audre Lorde is a brilliant and honest poet, and while no poem in this volume touches me as the earlier Lorde poems do, The Black Unicorn should be read for its own with, wisdom, and incandescence.