Images are the heart of poetry ... You're not a poet without imagery.

I think I've been writing black poems all along, wearing my white mask. I'm always the victim ... but no longer!

I love you. You are closest to my heart, closer than any other human being. You are my extension. You are my prayer. You are my belief in God. For better or worse you inherit me.

Now I am just an elderly lady who is full of spleen, who humps around greater Boston in a God-awful hat, who never lived and yet outlived her time, hating men and dogs and Democrats.

To be without God is to be a snake / who wants to swallow an elephant.

I wonder if the artist ever lives his life--he is so busy recreating it.

women are born twice.