Only by learning to live in harmony with your contradictions can you keep it all afloat.

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.

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?

In other words, I would be giving in to a myth of sameness which I think can destroy us.

I have suckled the wolf's lip of anger and I have used it for illumination, laughter, protection, fire in places where there was no light, no food, no sisters, no quarter.

My fear of anger taught me nothing.

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