Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.

. . . it is through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are-until the poem-nameless and formless, about to be birthed, but already felt.

If you don’t define yourself for yourself then you will be crushed into other's fantasies of you and eaten alive

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. That the speaking profits me, beyond any other effect....what I most regretted were my silences. Of what had I ever been afraid? ...Death on the other hand, is the final silence...my silences had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you.

It is axiomatic that if we do not define ourselves for ourselves, we will be defined by others-for their use and to our detriment.

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

There are no honest poems about dead women.