For those of us who write, it is necessary to scrutinize not only the truth of what we speak, but the truth of that language by which we speak it.

... it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence.

For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence.

We tend to think of the erotic as an easy, tantalizing sexual arousal. I speak of the erotic as the deepest life force, a force which moves us toward living in a fundamental way.

Black women are programmed to define ourselves within this male attention and to compete with each other for it rather than to recognize and move upon our common interests.

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

Difference is that raw and powerful connection from which our personal power is forged... We have been taught to either ignore our differences or to view them as causes for separation and suspicion rather than as forces for change. Without community, there is no liberation, only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice between an individual and her oppression... Survival is learning to take our difference and make them strengths.