I'm very disappointed in Barack Obama. I was very much in support of him in the beginning, but I cannot support war. I cannot support droning. I cannot support capitulating to the banks. I cannot support his caving in to Benjamin Netanyahu. I think many black people support him because they're so happy to have handsome black man in the White House. But it doesn't make me happy if that handsome black man in the White House is betraying all of our traditional values of peace, peoplehood, caring about strangers, feeding the hungry, and not bombing children.

People will say to you, "Oh, you are fearless." That is so not true. We should stop saying that about people. It's a slander, really.

I've found, in my own writing, that a little hatred, keenly directed, is a useful thing.

I'm the most stubborn person I know.

I'm not convinced that women have the education or the sense of their own history enough or that they understand the cruelty of which men are capable and the delight that many men will take in seeing you choose to chain yourself - then they get to say 'See, you did it yourself.'

Writing poems is my way of celebrating with the world that I have not committed suicide the evening before.

You can't send me anywhere that I wouldn't be happy to go. You'd be surprised as to how that lightens the heart.