If I am going to be a poet at all, I am going to be POET and not NEGRO POET.

Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:/ To make a poet black, and bid him sing!

For we must be one thing or the other, an asset or a liability, the sinew in your wing to help you soar, or the chain to bind you to earth.

All day long and all night through, One thing only must I do: Quench my pride and cool my blood, Lest I perish in the flood.

If I am going to be a poet at all, I am going to be POET and not NEGRO POET.

The truth is... everything counts. Everything. Everything we do and everything we say. Everything helps or hurts; everything adds to or takes away from someone else.

We shall not always plant while others reap