And where the words of women are crying to be heard, we must each of us recognize our responsibility to seek those words out, to read them and share them and examine them in their pertinence to our lives.

We are all in the process of becoming.

Well, I do not want to be tolerated, nor misnamed. I want to be recognized.

Say what you have to say now! Don't wait until you're sending blips from the other side.

Silence has never brought us anything of worth.

It does not pay to cherish symbols when the substance lies so close at hand.

Perhaps...I am the face of one of your fears. Because I am a woman, because I am Black, because I am a lesbian, because I am myself--a Black woman warrior poet doing my work--come to ask you, are you doing yours?