Wherever the bird with no feet flew, she found trees with no limbs.

I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.

Hatred is the fury of those who do not share our goals, and its object is death and destruction. Anger is a grief of distortions between peers, and its object is change.

Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.

I stand here as a black lesbian feminist, having been invited to comment within the only panel at this conference where the input of black feminists and lesbians is represented. What this says about the vision of this conference is sad, in a country where racism, sexism and homophobia are inseparable. . . .

Every woman I have ever known has made a lasting impression on my soul.

Silence and invisibility go hand in hand with powerlessness.