Though we tremble before uncertain futures may we meet illness, death and adversity with strength may we dance in the face of our fears.

Though we tremble before uncertain futures may we meet illness, death and adversity with strength may we dance in the face of our fears.

I had to leave home so I could find myself, find my own intrinsic nature buried under the personality that had been imposed on me.

Until I am free to write bilingually and to switch codes without having always to translate, while I still have to speak English or Spanish when I would rather speak Spanglish, and as long as I have to accommodate the English speakers rather than having them accommodate me, my tongue will be illegitimate. I will no longer be made to feel ashamed of existing. I will have my voice: Indian, Spanish, white. I will have my serpent's tongue - my woman's voice, my sexual voice, my poet's voice. I will overcome the tradition of silence.

Nothing happens in the 'real' world unless it first happens in the images in our heads

These my two hands / quick to slap my face / before others could slap it.

Write in the kitchen, lock yourself up in the bathroom. Write on the bus or the welfare line, on the job or during meals.