Those of us forged in the crucibles of difference know that survival is not an academic skill.

If you can't change reality, change your perceptions of it.

When I speak of the erotic, then I speak of it as an assertion of the life force of women; of that creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of which we are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives.

If what we need to dream, to move our spirits most deeply and directly toward and through promise, is discounted as a luxury, then we give up the core -- the fountain -- of our power, our womanness; we give up the future of our worlds. (From "Poetry is Not a Luxury")

When we create out of our experiences, as feminists of color, women of color, we have to develop those structures that will present and circulate our culture.

We are powerful because we have survived

I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.