We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.

What I'm fighting for now in my work... for an expression relevant to all manner of blacks, poems I could take into a tavern, into the street, into the halls of a housing project.

I like the concentration, the crush; I like working with language, as others like working with clay, or notes.

I am interested in telling my particular truth as I have seen it.

I don't want people running around saying Gwen Brooks's work is intellectual. That makes people think instantly about obscurity. It shouldn't have to mean that, but it often seems to.

We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.

When I start writing a poem, I don't think about models or about what anybody else in the world has done.