Nothing could stop Mississippi.

Live not for Battles Won. Live not for The-End-of-the-Song. Live in the along.

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

A writer should get as much education as possible, but just going to school is not enough; if it were, all owners of doctorates would be inspired writers.

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.

Exhaust the little moment / Soon it dies.

I tell poets that when a line just floats into your head, don't pay attention 'cause it probably has floated into somebody else's head.